


The Journey

by PumpkinPantaloons



Category: The Evil Within (Video Game)
Genre: If the developers were fanfic authors, Like I use the dialogue from the game, M/M, Pretend Joseph DLC, follows the story of TEW closely, seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-13
Updated: 2015-02-25
Packaged: 2018-03-12 05:53:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 19
Words: 23,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3345980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PumpkinPantaloons/pseuds/PumpkinPantaloons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joseph is turning into a monster and Ruvik is enjoying it.</p>
<p>Follows the plot of TEW from Joseph's perspective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introductions

**Author's Note:**

> I use the dialogue from the game, but take liberties with Joseph's thoughts and actions when he's not with Sebastian. This is getting pretty long, s-so I hope it isn't too boring.

Joseph carefully breathed through his mouth, hyper sensitive to the near-overpowering smell of blood in the air as he tended to the doctor slumped against the wall while Sebastian examined the monitors. He looked up when he heard his partner utter a curse. There was a flutter and then someone in a tattered white coat was between him and Sebastian.

“Seb!” Joseph called out, standing, but his partner was already crumpling to whatever the person had done to him. He reached for his gun as the man turned around. He was horribly scarred, burns most likely, but his eyes, his piercing, deadly eyes froze Joseph’s hand.

“Seb?” The man in tattered white echoed in a gravelly voice, “Alright, let’s find out what else you know.” A blink later the man was mere inches from him, reaching out a hand.

“I hope you’re happy,” Sebastian growled, advancing on him until he was backed against a table. “I’ve been suspended during the investigation with Internal Affairs.”

“Of course I’m not happy, Sebastian,” Joseph fired back while his heart thudded heavily in his chest and his stomach felt like it was caught in barbed wire, “but that’s why I filed the report. You’re drinking yourself to death.”

“It’s not affecting my work, so what I do on my own time is my own business.”

It took all of his strength, but Joseph placed his hands against Sebastian’s chest, shoving him away. “Seb, I’m not worried about your work, I’m worried about you. You’ve barely ever been sober since Lily died, and you won’t talk to anyone. You’ve become more reckless than ever. You could get killed! What else was I supposed to do?” He wanted to hit his partner, swear at him, shake some sense into him, but nothing he’d tried so far had worked, and Myra was too buried in her work to help, avoiding their daughter’s death in her own way.

He couldn’t watch them fall apart.

Sebastian froze in shock. No, he wasn’t moving at all. He wasn’t breathing, just standing there, features twisted in anger.

“What a sad tale.” Joseph heard a deep, rottenly sweet voice from behind him. He spun around to see a man in a tattered white coat and pants, skin burned, eyes hard, lips quirked in a mocking smile.

“Who-”

The man’s hard, grating voice rolled right over the rest of his question, “Betrayal. I can use that.” The man breached the distance between them in an impossible flickering of steps, and then disappeared.  
Joseph instantly felt nauseous and started coughing. The barbed wire that had tortured his stomach reached up with snagging tendrils around his heart, crawled up his throat, and his coughing splattered blood on the ground.

But even as he felt horrible, a horrific anger was welling in him – why was Sebastian always blaming him for everything, always tearing him down when all he was trying to do was help? Again and again he was yelled at, insulted, even while he wrangled the drunkard out of a bar and into his own car; he couldn’t get the smell of vomit out of it. Nearly every night it was a fight to get him into bed because Myra was nowhere to be found. Not once had Sebastian thanked him for the consideration, for the help. No, it was fine, he wasn’t in it for the gratification, why did he keep doing it, because he’s hurting, all Seb really wanted was to follow after his dead daughter.

Maybe he should. He was a burden on everyone.

Joseph pulled his gun from its holster, no no no no no, three shots to the chest and Sebastian fell backwards with a dull thud, no no no. There was sharp, bubbling laughter that wasn’t quite his as he stood over his partner. The man was gasping for air, blood staining his lips, eyes wide and startled. Of course the great detective wouldn’t see this coming, wouldn’t think someone would get fed up with him.

Joseph shot him in the head.

And then screamed, pressing his hands against his head. “No no no no no!” He dropped to his knees, irrationally trying to plug up the holes he had created in his partner. “Seb! Seb oh god, why did I-” 

Sebastian was holding his shoulders. Joseph was damp and cold from a slimy liquid coating the lower half of his body.

“Thank god you’re ok,” Sebastian said, rushing him into a sitting position.

“I don’t know what I am,” Joseph responded, trying to keep his voice even over what he’d just done, so glad that it had just been a nightmare. Even so, he was ashamed of the vicious thoughts that had lead to him shooting his partner and wondered if they’d always been there. He looked up at Sebastian, “but it’s definitely not ok.” Joseph glanced around the room, attention catching on the machine with the upended tub awkwardly in the center of the room. “You brought me here?”

A pain stabbed through his chest and then up into his brain. He grabbed the side of his head trying to calm it and bit back the scream that reverberated in his thoughts. After a couple seconds where he thought he might pass out, the sound subsided like a receding tide. “Jesus. What happened? My head feels like… like…” The tinny sound was a light pressure against his eardrums. “Can you hear that?”

“We need to get out of here,” Sebastian responded quickly, starting to pull him up, “Can you move?”

“Yeah.” Joseph took a step with his partner’s help, but the second Sebastian let go a wave of dizziness shoved him back down to his knees. He gasped, trying to breathe around coughs that suddenly rattled his chest.

“Joseph!” Sebastian steadied him again, patiently rubbed his back, and the coughing quickly eased up.   
Joseph got back to his feet with more success. “I’ve still got a little fight left in me,” he remarked, and he wasn’t sure if it was out of surprise, or to assure Sebastian that he was ok. He started coughing again, but it was much lighter. 

“Let’s get out of here fast,” Sebastian said, striding purposefully towards the door.

Joseph followed, trying not to stagger. He squelched as he moved after Sebastian, dripping goo onto the floor. Thankfully the substance was quickly evaporating and he was mostly dry by the time he stumbled through the door after Sebastian.

Joseph tried to put the horrible dream of him shooting his partner out of his mind as they heard the sounds of garbled moaning up ahead.


	2. Haunted

“They’re called haunted,” Sebastian explained as they jogged down a flight of stairs. When Joseph had seen the humans, brains exposed, bubbling with pustules, monsters in human shape, he had paused. Sebastian had not. He had been fighting through those things while Joseph had been dreaming in that tub, and he felt a twinge of guilt for somehow abandoning his partner to deal with the haunted alone.

But he was with him now, and while he felt like shit, teetering on the edge of collapsing again as coughs occasionally shook his body, he would fight through it, he would watch Seb’s back. But as he stared at that broad back, he couldn’t help envy the strength in contrast to his own weakness. Sebastian hadn’t needed him, he’d done just fine on his own.

Sebastian doesn’t need you. Maybe Sebastian has never needed you, so why press forward? Why continue when you’re so useless and Sebastian is so solid, so strong?

He almost ran into Sebastian when he suddenly stopped at a door, staring at it in frustration. Joseph sidestepped to see that it was trapped with a ludicrously elaborate series of bombs. Sebastian just glanced at him. Joseph sighed, hiding a smile, and went up to the door, looking it over, analyzing the puzzle that was its structure. Ok, so there was something he could do that Sebastian couldn’t. The man was a good detective, but hadn’t majored in engineering in college. Once he’d figured it out, Joseph deftly took apart the correct wires, and there was an electrical pop on the other side of the door signifying it was unlocked and as safe as this place got.

He tried not to feel the small spark of resentment when Sebastian said nothing, just strode into the room past him, and then a piercing noise cut away his thoughts. He pressed a hand against his ear, dropping his gun to try and cover the other one. Rage surged through him again against the barbed wire slicing through his brain, and he lunged forward, wrapping his fingers around the throat of the man in front of him. Squeeze. Squeeze. Kill him. Release yourself of this burden of always holding back. The anger is fine, the anger is good. No no no! That’s Seb, you don’t want to do this! Not again!

Sebastian shoved him away, and Joseph repeated his desperate mantra to fight the rottenly sweet voice that told him it was ok to let go. He ripped off his glasses, eyes itching, panting with the effort to stuff down whatever was bubbling under the surface of his skin. He wouldn’t hurt Sebastian, his partner, his friend.

Joseph felt warmth ooze out of his nose, and tasted a coppery salt in the back of his throat. He looked up to catch Sebastian coughing and sputtering, hands touching where Joseph had been choking him. Oh god why had he been? He dragged his fist underneath his nose to wipe away the blood trickling there, taking in deep, shuddering breaths. Guilt melted him from the inside, but he resisted the urge to collapse to the floor.

“Joseph,” Sebastian started, approaching him with less caution than Joseph thought was warranted, “After Connelly, I thought…” he shrugged.

Sebastian had also told Joseph that Connelly had become one of those things, and he almost wanted to laugh at the fact that his partner was apologizing for shoving him when he had been trying to kill him, just like the patrolmen had. Joseph was just lucky, unlucky, that his partner hadn’t put a bullet between his eyes instead.

“I… I don’t know what came over me…” Joseph coughed, “I hadn’t been feeling well, but…”

Sebastian tilted his head, looking at him from another angle, and Joseph wondered what he was looking for, what he saw in him. His expression was cautious, but there was no anger, only concern, and the urge to punch him for being so casual about what had just happened popped like a bubble in water.

“Look, let’s just get out of here. There’s something wrong with this place.” Sebastian turned his back to him and started forward again as if they hadn’t just been interrupted by attempted murder.

Joseph wanted to scream at him, but instead he coughed, picked up his gun, and began to follow, offering a half-hearted agreement to a very true statement, “Yeah.” The rattling cough returned, and he felt sick and dizzy, but he stumbled after his partner nonetheless. 

Attempted murder. Just like in the dream. He had tried to kill Sebastian again. He placed a hand over his mouth to stop the urge to throw up, trying to focus on just putting one foot in front of the other.


	3. The Cell

Joseph realized he had no idea where Sebastian was leading him when his partner opened a door emblazoned with what looked like a blood splatter of the hospital logo. The man glanced in a small, dirty mirror in the room, eyes unfocusing for a second, before he gently shook his head and walked back out of the dead end. For a brief moment Joseph wondered if Sebastian really was unaffected by their strange, horrific surroundings.

They walked down a small hallway and Sebastian slowly pushed open white, stained double doors at the end of it, and Joseph’s eyes instantly met Kidman’s. She was in a plastic box, wrapped in what could only be considered an aesthetic presentation of barbed wire (because it certainly served no actual purpose with the huge combination lock on it). The part that made Joseph’s throat go dry though was the fact that water was pooling around Kidman’s ankles and slowly rising.

“Get me out of this thing!” Kidman yelled loud enough to hear through the plastic, banging on it.

Joseph ran to the railing, surveying the scene, but Sebastian just started to charge towards a slab of rubble that easily led down to the floor below. “Wait a minute!” Joseph called to him as he was already too far down to see the haunted coming from under cover of the balcony. “It’s another trap. Look!” He pointed towards the waiting enemies, “It’s much more elaborately-” the rest of the sentence was cut off by a heavy weight on his back clicking his teeth together, a loud snapping sound, and then he was tumbling through air. The ground caught him unforgivingly, knocking the wind out of him. His legs were tangled with the haunted that had crashed into him. Disgusting.

“Are you all right?” Sebastian called down, verbally shoving Joseph out of his dazed attempt to breathe.   
He rolled into a standing position, stumbling away from the haunted, “Yeah, I’m fine!” He raised his gun, aiming at the monster that was slowly getting up to its feet, noticing the growing number of haunted that were beginning to surround him. “I think you better get down here…” he added as calmly as possible; he couldn’t exactly help Kidman if he was swarmed by haunted.

“Hold on, I’m coming!” Sebastian charged down the ramp, a certainly more graceful entrance than Joseph’s own plummet. He felt unlucky, and would have flushed with embarrassment if he wasn’t more concerned with ensuring that none of them died.

 

His arms were shaking, his ears ringing, and his breathing ragged by the time the waves of enemies trickled to a stop and the last reverberating echo of dynamite died down. He gave himself a single moment to let out a shaking breath before he ran towards the cage that was still filling with dirty water. “Kidman needs help!”

He stopped in front of the lock on the plastic box laced with barbed wire, trying to stay focused on it and not the fact that Kidman was desperately treading water in front of him. He heard Seb say something, but was too focused on the lock to pay attention. “You’d better come have a look at this, I can’t get the thing open.” In typical Seb fashion, the detective just yanked on the lock, then shook his head. “I think there’s another control panel around here,” Joseph pointed towards the pipes leading away from the trap, “Where do these cables go?”

Sebastian immediately started heading in that direction, “I’ll go,” he glanced over his shoulder at Joseph, “Tell me what to do.” Joseph nodded back at him, and then Sebastian ducked into an alcove and out of his line of sight.

Joseph looked up at Julie, pressing a hand against the plastic. His heart was a small stone in his chest. “We’ll have you out of there soon,” he assured them both.

“You better!” She gasped back, “Or else I’ll haunt you forever.”

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Joseph couldn’t help but snort at the unexpected, and uncharacteristic joke from the junior detective. “What about Sebastian?”

Julie scrunched up her nose, and he couldn’t tell if it was because of the distaste at the idea of haunting Sebastian, or the smell of the water that was rising past her shoulders. 

Joseph caught a flutter out of the corner of his eye and turned his head to see Sebastian through a crumbled section of wall. He looked back at him, gesturing towards a place in the wall Joseph couldn’t see. “Look at the control panel!” He yelled, “It’s got the same kind of dials, right?”

“Yeah, a top one and a bottom one,” Sebastian confirmed.

Joseph looked back at the lock he’d already adjusted, even though he’d memorized what the mirror combination should be. “Set the upper dial to 22, and the lower dial to 5.”

The front of the cage opened, spilling water and Kidman out onto the floor. Joseph dropped to a crouch to help her into a sitting position. “Are you all right?” She was dripping wet, and had been close to drowning, so he knew it was a stupid question, but she gave him a one eyebrow look that confirmed it – she was doing fantastic. He started to smile back at her, looking towards Sebastian to let him know they were alright, when he saw the red glow as something cut through the floor. And then the floor dropped out from underneath them.


	4. Hope in a Rush

They didn’t fall far, but the jarring plummet knocked Joseph to the ground. They were surrounded by haunted. He rolled away from a swinging axe, scrambling to his feet just as Kidman was doing the same.

“That way!” She exclaimed, pointing through a small number of haunted down a twisting, man-made tunnel system. He knew he didn’t have time to consider alternatives, so he decided to trust her judgment. He raised his gun in the direction Kidman had pointed and fired off a series of shots, exploding the head of one of the monsters and knocking another to the ground. They charged past their ambush. Sprinting wasn’t an option with the broken floor and some of the more narrow passageways, but they quickly outpaced their assailants. Until they hit a large gate.

Joseph spun back the way they’d come, raising his gun again, while Kidman struggled with the small iron door next to the gate. “Locked!” She exclaimed, and Joseph’s heart sank. Kidman was without a weapon, and he had enough sense to know he wouldn’t be able to take out all of the haunted before they were overrun.

“Try the gate,” he responded even though he knew it was futile; maybe they’d get lucky. Although their situation didn’t seem to accommodate lucky.

He heard Kidman grunt with the effort. “It’s too heavy,” she narrated, “I’m going to try the door again.” He heard the door rattle behind him uselessly. “For what it’s worth,” she unexpectedly shouted at him over the growing sounds of thumping boots and growling, “thanks for coming to get me.”

“You’re our partner,” Joseph called back, then saw the first of the haunted appear around the curve in the tunnel. He shot their leg out from underneath them, tripping up the one behind them, giving Joseph enough time to take a couple pot shots at them. They didn’t get back up, but the three behind them did not hesitate to trample their companions in their mad rush forward. Joseph kept shooting, aiming to slow them down, stalling for something he didn’t really believe was coming – hope.

And then he heard shots echoing down the corridor, and Joseph started backing up, continuing to knock down and snipe the haunted that were now spilling into the room, knowing that Sebastian was on his way. The haunted started to thin, and then trickled to a stop the moment before Sebastian burst into the room. 

Joseph heard Kidman let out a sigh from behind him before she called to him. “Sebastian!”

“Are you guys all right?”

“We’re all right,” Joseph confirmed.

“Just a few bumps. We’re fine,” Kidman echoed.

As Sebastian walked over to Kidman, presumably to check on the door, Joseph went over to the larger gate, pulling out his notebook to see if there was anything they’d come across that would help them open it. He couldn’t find anything, but when he tested the door, it didn’t appear to be locked, just incredibly heavy.

“If you hadn’t come along…” Kidman trailed off, and Joseph could hear the relief in her voice. They both joined him in front of the gate. Kidman nodded towards the iron bars, “It looks like the door is locked from the other side,” she explained.

“Sebastian, maybe we can lift this enough for Kidman to go under and open it from the other side?” Joseph offered.

His partner nodded once at him, and then glanced at Kidman. “We’re counting on you.”

She echoed the nod, “Alright.” They hefted the gate off the ground, both straining against it as the junior detective got down on her stomach and wriggled through to the other side. They let the door drop again with a heavy thud. Joseph brushed off his slacks as he stood before they both headed over to the smaller door, waiting for Kidman, who unlocked it with no trouble at all. She turned and started heading on down the tunnel with an authority that Joseph didn’t understand.

“I’m glad you’re both all right,” Sebastian stated, the relief clear in his tone. 

Joseph pursed his lips, hoping he was really only talking about Kidman, because he shouldn’t be happy to see him again. Kidman… “It’s odd though. Why would they catch you instead of killing you?” He left unspoken that he could ask the same question of all three of them.

“Maybe he didn’t see me as a threat?” Kidman offered, not turning to look at him.

Joseph blinked. “‘He’?” But before he could continue prodding for more information the screeching sound returned, cutting off his thoughts. He gasped out, but then almost screamed when he felt something grab his ankle. Liquid enveloped him, thick and slick like blood, covering his mouth, and then his nose, and he squeezed his eyes shut before it could get into them too. His lungs burned.


	5. The Nurse's Office

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First completely made up section. Here we go /o/

Joseph jerked up, gasping for air until he realized he was no longer covered in the viscous coppery liquid, and was instead sitting up on a dirty mattress. He scrunched up his nose, swinging his legs off the side of the bed to the eerie creaking of the metal frame.

He swept his gaze over the small, dilapidated room he was in, but didn’t see Sebastian or Kidman. He scrambled up and out of the open door, entering a long hallway. “Sebastian? Kidman?” He called out, looking down the corridor.

“Please refrain from yelling. You’ll agitate the other patients.” A calm, unfamiliar voice requested blandly. Joseph whipped his head in the opposite direction to see a woman in a nurse’s uniform and pink cardigan standing in the archway of the hallway leading out into a small lobby area.

She turned around when he saw her and started slowly walking towards the opposite side of the area to a door made of iron grating. Joseph reflexively followed her. “Who are you?” He asked the retreating back, receiving no response. The woman stopped in front of the metal door, staring back at him, expression neutral. He stopped in the middle of the small lobby, quickly taking it in. There was a tiny reception desk, a corkboard, a small newsstand, but more importantly, where he would have expected a door leading outside, there was just a blank wall. “Where is this?” He received no response.

He looked back down the hallway he’d come from. There were four solid metal doors, all but the one he’d come from shut. At the end of the hallway was an antique, oval mirror above a dresser. There were no doors behind the little reception area either. He was trapped. Joseph waited for the terror to set in, but it was sluggish in the dream-like atmosphere. Maybe it was best if he was trapped, separated from Sebastian; he couldn’t try to hurt him again.

Joseph started coughing, the sound gurgling. He tasted copper, but the coughing subsided before it got any further than that.

“You don’t look well, detective,” the woman finally spoke up. Joseph looked up at her, almost having forgotten her quiet presence in the room, and surprised that he had. She stepped to the right, then motioned to the door, “this way.”

Seeing no other option, he followed her inside the small room, passing another tiny square mirror along the way. She turned towards him and he finally saw what the tiny room contained – a desk with a revolver on it. He looked back at her, eyes widening. “What is the meaning of this?” He asked, breath hitching in his throat because with a dream-like knowledge he knew the answer already. It was the way out. He checked for his gun and found he’d lost it during the transition to this place. He swallowed.

“I cannot answer that question for you,” she responded serenely, but continued to stand next to the desk, hands folded in front of her, relaxed.

“Who are you?” He tried again.

“I am a nurse, detective,” she answered, just the barest hint of sarcasm in her tone.

“I noticed that,” Joseph returned, feeling the itch of frustration. “What’s your name? Why are you here? What is this place?”

“So many questions,” The woman responded, her voice colored with desaturated humor, “but I can’t answer them for you.”

“Why not?” He asked, the exasperation making his fingers twitch. The tingling taste of copper rose in the back of his throat again. He felt dizzy and wanted nothing more than to sit down and bury his face in his hands, hoping it would push out all thought.

“Because your partner needs you,” she answered mildly after several seconds of Joseph giving up on getting any information from her.

His head snapped up to search her face, trying to pick out the truth in her dark eyes. His heart started to hammer, his pulse racing as a switch flipped in his brain. He didn’t want to see Sebastian, afraid of what he might try, the monster he was becoming, but at the same time, if his partner really did need him, he couldn’t just ignore it. He took a lurching step towards the table, towards the gun, eyes falling to its unnatural gleam in the dim, greenish light. He reached out, but his fingers fell short of it as he looked back to the nurse. “Are you sure?”

“You know the answer,” she said gravely.

Joseph picked up the gun. He took several measured, shaking breaths, putting the gun to his head. He squeezed the trigger. His hand jerked at the last moment and the shot lodged in the wall.

The nurse was watching him expectantly. He took another deep breath. Sebastian needed him. The second shot blacked everything out, letting the loud buzzing he’d been hearing come into sharp focus, ringing in his ears. It stabbed like hypodermic needles into his brain. It continued for several seconds before he started to feel himself sink into it and be able to think again.


	6. A Friend In Need

Strong, warm arms were around him, elevating him into a sitting position. He squinted at the sudden light of the setting sun, near-blinding after the sickly greenish glow of the reception area.

“Are you all right?” Sebastian was propping him up, attention completely focused on him. Joseph felt himself flush underneath that scrutiny. He knew his partner didn’t smile much anymore, but he could see the relief in the lines of his face, and Joseph wondered why it was there. Wouldn’t it be better if he wasn’t all right? Wouldn’t it be safer for Sebastian if he was dead? 

He placed a hand to his head, trying to push the thoughts out; the nurse had said Sebastian needed him. “My head wouldn’t stop buzzing… it felt like it was about to crack open.” He saw his partner’s brow furrow further, leaving deep creases in the grime smeared there, and Joseph scrambled to take the burden of his wellbeing back off of his partner’s shoulders, “But now it’s like… I’m starting to get used to it.” Lies.

There was a long pause, in which Joseph couldn’t tell what Seb was thinking, and then he asked an unexpected question, “You seen Kidman?”

“No… Next thing I knew I was here. I must have blacked out or…” Joseph swallowed. Maybe the room hadn’t been real, maybe only the static in his head had mattered, and he knew what happened when he heard that piercing noise in his head, “maybe I turned again…” Joseph clamped his mouth shut, angry with himself for being so honest about his concerns. He’d meant to keep Sebastian from having to worry about him, but every time his partner asked him a question, only an honest answer would pour out, and the growing panic that maybe he had just turned was starting to cut into him.

Before Joseph could backtrack and revise his statement to make it sound more positive, the door up the path groaned inwards. Sebastian hauled him to his feet. “Inside. Let’s go.”

They rushed through a door and up a pair of ladders. Joseph scooped up a discard axe as they ran… into a door covered in dials and bombs. “Another one?” Maybe this was what the nurse had meant about Sebastian needing him.

“Get that thing open!”

Joseph dropped to his knees, examining the wires on the door, careful to catch every detail, “I’m working on it! Just give me a little time,” he shouted back at his partner without turning around. There was a crash and the roar of fire, but Joseph forced himself to continue staring forward, believing Sebastian would keep him protected while he performed the delicate work. He moved his hands over the wires, watching one red light blink off after another, actually feeling a little incredulous that the door felt the need to tell him he was doing a good job when his own partner couldn’t be bothered. He almost laughed at the weird spike of resentment before he stood to push the door open, “Let’s go!”

He spared a glance over his shoulder to see Sebastian following him as he rushed down a set of stairs and into the room below where the ceiling was crumbling from the fire, and was halted by another trapped door. He huffed in irritation, sweat from the heat of the room starting to trickle down the back of his neck. He quickly examined the door, looking for the pattern even though his heart was hammering in his chest.

“There's twice as many of them,” Sebastian prodded, but he didn’t sound frightened, just annoyed.

His partner’s calm was infectious as the second light flickered out. “If you have time to complain,” Joseph fired back, a measure of teasing creeping into his tone even though the sounds of fighting were right at his back.

Finally when the last light went out Joseph double checked to make sure the door wasn’t lying to him, and then let his partner know it was time to go. They both rushed through the door, baring it shut. They only had a moment of rest, Sebastian briefly staring at his reflection in a discarded mirror on the ground, before they continued on in a rush to wade through the Haunted all bent on trying to kill them.

Eventually they made it to an empty elevator. Joseph’s arms were shaking with the effort to hold onto the axe as they rode up, heading only god knew where. He was covered in gore and breathing heavily. He wasn’t exactly out of shape, but his exercise wasn’t focused on stamina as an axe-wielding maniac. Sebastian was similarly taking deep gulps of air, even though he had been leaning more heavily on using his guns and a rifle he’d picked up.

Now would be a perfect time to kill him. He’s winded and tired. His guard is down. You could take him now. Just hit him. Joseph started at the thoughts that speared through his mind, shaking with them. He quickly wiped his hand on his pants before pressing his trembling fingers to his lips, keeping in the bile that rose in his throat. Just hit him! The buzzing was rising in the back of his mind, and his stomach was tying itself into barbed knots. It’ll be easy. He wants to die. Do it for him. 

The elevator jerked to a rough stop, the door opening automatically. Joseph followed Sebastian out towards a small stone bridge, even though he wanted to stay inside and bar it shut to keep something between Sebastian and his sick thoughts. No. He had to hold on, keep it together. Sebastian actually needed him, the nurse had said so. He scrambled for a normal thought to distract himself. “Do you think Kidman is ok?”

“I don’t like that they used her as bait,” Sebastian responded gruffly, “almost like someone is toying with us.”

Joseph was about to say that Kidman had mentioned a ‘he’, when the tickle rose in his throat, constricting his chest and he started coughing again.

Sebastian stopped, looking back at him, eyebrows stabbing towards each other. “Hang in there,” he said softly, “Just a little further.”

Joseph wanted to ask what that even meant because all they were doing was going to a tower so that they could get a better look around. They had no destination, no reason to keep going. He wanted to scream at the pointlessness of it all. Instead he just grunted and ‘hung in there’ and followed Sebastian towards the stone bridge.

Then Joseph saw something that jarred him. A man screaming before a guillotine blade descended, severing his head. It wasn’t anyone he recognized, but he couldn’t help the dread that maybe there was a next in line. “There are only two. We can take them.”

“No! That’s not-” Sebastian called after him before Joseph heard the distinctive beep of an explosive trap, then he felt himself flying before everything went black.


	7. In Her Job Description

Joseph opened his eyes, staring at a ceiling with pale green, peeling paint. He sat up in the creaking bed. He recognized the room he was in because he had seen it once before when he had been pulled down into the blood-like water.

“I see you’re awake,” the nurse said through the bars of the shut door, and then she walked out of his field of view. Joseph eased himself into a sitting position. His back felt hot, and he slowly looked over his shoulder to see that the back of his vest was slightly singed from the bomb.

How had he been so stupid? He knew there were traps on the doors, he’d seen a couple of the motion sensor traps that Sebastian clumsily disarmed, why hadn’t he been looking for tripwires? Was his head really so messed up that he’d make such a rookie mistake? Joseph shook his head and then winced at the pain it caused in the muscles of his back. He slowly swung his legs over the edge of the bed, groaning, but before he could ease himself into a standing position, the nurse came back into view. 

She opened the door and walked in carrying a medical kit. “Please remove your vest and shirt so that I may tend to your burns,” she instructed in a clinically bland tone. When he hesitated, stunned, she sighed, “Detective, please do as I say.”

Joseph choked, cheeks heating up, and then realized there was nothing to be embarrassed about. She was a nurse… if a strange one in a strange place, and he would need to have the burns treated if he was going to keep going. If he was going to keep going? What was he even doing? Was he still with Sebastian? Was Sebastian ok? He hadn’t been too close to the explosion, and if his own back was any indication, the explosion wouldn’t have been enough to kill Sebastian, just knock him on his ass. 

Joseph loosened, then removed his tie, folding it and setting it aside. His vest quickly followed. The shirt was a little more difficult because he had to slowly peel it off of his back, hissing as he did so. The nurse waited patiently through the entire process, then motioned for him to sit on the bed with his back to her.

Joseph pressed his lips into a line as the woman carefully and methodically cleaned the wounds and then bandaged them, wrapping the gauze around his stomach, from his waist to just underneath his armpits. By the time she was finished his back was numb and he was able to move again without trouble. “Thank you.” 

“It’s my job,” she said, stepping away from him, but he caught the barest hint of pride in her voice.

Joseph turned around, putting his clothing back on. “Are you trapped here?” He looked up into her dark eyes, brow furrowing.

Instead of answering, she turned away and walked out of the room. He got up to follow. She led him back to the room with the revolver gleaming dully on the wooden table. The lacquer reflecting the light on it was now peeling. She motioned towards the weapon, “It’s time to go, detective.”

He looked around the small, otherwise bare room before picking up the revolver with a resigned desperation. If this was the only way out…

He jolted as he remembered the sickening thoughts he’d been having before his mistake with the tripwire. Would he be able to stop them? Should he really return to that nightmare and endanger Sebastian again? The nurse was watching him expectantly, betraying nothing. 

He wanted to ask again if she was trapped, but knew she wouldn’t answer. “Do you know what’s happening to me?” He asked instead.

“What happens to you is your own choice,” she said with a finality that frightened him. 

He squeezed the grip of the gun in his gloved hand, slowly raising it to his temple. “If you say so,” he responded quietly, and then squeezed the trigger. The sound echoed in the darkness, louder than expected, then he was face down in the dirt. On either side of him were the bodies of the haunted that had been beheading people, their own heads he could feel sliding off his face. He wiped away the gore as he began climbing to his feet.


	8. Both Are Sinking

“You ok?” He heard Sebastian’s voice.

He turned to see the man across the way from him, rifle in hand, at the end of a walkway. “No need to worry, I’m fine.” He answered, scanning the area for something to use to allow Sebastian to cross once he noticed that the bridge was gone. He unexpectedly found the perfect ramp leaning against some rocks. Was it really lucky, or was some malicious force trying to get him near Sebastian again to allow the thoughts to well up and for him to turn on his friend? Joseph’s heart thudded in his chest and he wondered frantically if he should have stayed in the reception area with the nurse.

He placed the ramp down and each step Sebastian took towards him the buzzing got worse and the fear grew like water coming to a boil. He was going to kill Sebastian if he kept going, he knew it with a cold certainty that turned him frantic. “You should have just let them…” He had to do something before it was too late. Joseph moved up to Sebastian slowly then grabbed the gun the man had in a loose grip. He stepped back as he pressed it to his temple, just as he’d done a couple seconds ago in the other place; but this time he was hoping the result would be permanent.

“The hell?” Sebastian exclaimed, panic in his brown eyes.

Joseph felt the need to explain himself so that Sebastian would know it wasn’t his fault, “It’s just a matter of time… Better this than-” He was cut off by Sebastian body-checking him, knocking him to the ground and the gun out of his hand. 

His head snapped against the dirt, dazing him long enough for Sebastian to scramble for the gun, surging up to his feet. “What the fuck!” He exclaimed, and while the words were spat out in anger, they were laced with fear.

Joseph sat up, facing away from his partner, drawing in and out unsteady breaths. Why didn’t Sebastian understand? The man had lost everything and had become a drunk to avoid it, why couldn’t he understand Joseph trying to fix his problem, trying to put an end to the threat he posed?

Sebastian walked away, silently heading for another gate. Joseph stood reluctantly, looking after the tense back of his partner, gun now gripped tightly in his hand. Sebastian didn’t want to lose anyone else in his life, Joseph understood that. He tried to steel himself against the inevitable, reluctantly following his partner.

Anything either of them might have said when Joseph caught up to him was halted by another wave of the haunted coming up from behind. Joseph worked the crank that opened the gate while Sebastian defended them before they rushed through, Sebastian shooting the crank, destroying it and dropping the gate down again.

They both stared at the door, making sure the haunted couldn’t get through before they turned to keep going. “Joseph are you…” Sebastian paused, and it was clear he was searching for an adequate word, “all right?”

“I…” fuck you of course I’m not, “I…” you just don’t want to deal with it. And why should he have to? It was Joseph’s problem, he would have to figure out a way to deal with it. “Yeah.” Sebastian didn’t respond, just started walking again.

Joseph smelled the sickly sweet stench of rotting fruit, sharply citrusy, like lemons, and by now he knew what to associate it with, “I think I smell those things. They might be nearby.” Sebastian nodded his response, slowing his gait. They went into what looked like a small market, an angel statue watching over the abandoned, rotting stalls.

Sebastian paused by one, lightly touching the counter top. His brow furrowed as if he were listening for something, but before Joseph could ask what he was doing, he was moving on. Joseph followed. They passed through the eerily silent market and through another gate. Almost immediately the itch in the back of his throat returned and he started coughing so hard it felt like the force of it was cracking his ribcage. As violent as the fit was though, it was over quickly and he continued beside Sebastian.

“Where do you suppose we are?” The man asked, glancing sideways at him before returning to his examination of the stone maze before them.

“More like ‘when’,” Joseph offered reflectively, “This architecture seems straight out of the middle ages.”

“Yeah, but there’s electricity, elevators. This place can’t be real.”

Joseph blinked, turning the idea over in his head. “It’s like jumbled up memories.” Memories. Is that what this place was? Then what was the reception area with the gun? Whose memory was that? The tickle started in the back of his throat yet again, compelling him to cough. But as the coughing jag started, it turned into a swell of sharp barbs that tore at his throat. He tasted blood. He staggered, clutching at a pillar to keep upright as splotches of red splattered onto the ground and the coughing turned into a horrible gurgling noise that shook his body. His head was a stinging mess, blocking out the meaning of whatever words Sebastian was saying to him.

The taller man grabbed his arm, slinging it over his broad shoulders, and then wrapped his arm around his waist, ushering him forward. Joseph tried desperately to get his legs to work at the same time he struggled to breathe in between the shuddering coughs. They entered a small alcove of a crumbling building, and Sebastian let go, leaving Joseph to stumble against the wall. He clawed at his throat as his insides tore themselves into ragged pieces. He fell more than slid into a sitting position, kicking up a cloud of dust.

He looked up at the sound of a familiar sloshing noise and saw Sebastian gauging how much liquid he still had in his whisky flask. Joseph swallowed several times, wetting his throat enough to get the coughing to calm down. A cold bead of sweat at his temple reminded him of the press of the gun that Sebastian had knocked out of his hand, the one the man was tightly gripping at the moment. “Is this what it was like, Seb? After the accident?”

Sebastian stared at him, eyes hard, but Joseph didn’t regret the question. “Well I never put a gun to my head.”

It sounded like an accusation, and Joseph’s body flashed cold, then hot, “No. Of course not,” you would never try to solve the problem, “Just quietly sank into a bottle.”

Joseph could see Sebastian’s jaw clench. “We can’t all be perfect,” he scowled, and if Joseph had been confident in his ability to stand, he would have done so to deck his partner one. “It never affected my work.” Sebastian stalked towards him, close enough that he could stare down his nose at Joseph in the dirt, “But hey, you read the IA report.” 

Joseph’s shoulders fell as it was driven home again that Sebastian had no clue what he’d been trying to do for him. Ungrateful sycophant. Joseph swallowed against the spiteful words, trying to shove them as far away as possible. “You know I didn’t report you because I was worried about your work, Sebastian.”

Sebastian had the decency to look uncomfortable and turn away, “What else is there?”

Joseph’s answers to that were as jumbled up as the scenery, so he just watched Sebastian walk to a small window to stare out it. He clearly did not like what he saw. “We don’t have time for this.” He turned back to Joseph, and dragged him to his feet, and Joseph had to be thankful that he stayed up. “I need my partner here. I’m counting on you.”

As far as motivational speeches went it was fairly pathetic, but as an echo of what the nurse had told him, it let him ignore the slight humming in the back of his mind. He didn’t know what to say, so he did what he usually did, observe. Among other things he found a jumble of symbols in a corner of the room and got out his notebook to quickly sketch them.

“Find something?” Sebastian asked casually, as if the previous conversation had never occurred.

“Maybe… it’s all symbols. Maybe some kind of cult?” He shrugged. “Could be useful.” He pursed his lips together, taking in a quiet, deep breath. “I… I think I’m ok. We should probably get going.” Sebastian didn’t respond, just walked into another one of the small rooms with the symbol of the hospital splashed on it. Sebastian glanced around the room, and then at the cracked mirror, and then brushed past Joseph and out into the sunlight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is an audio log in the market in-game, but since Joseph never reacts to them I'm working under the idea that Joseph isn't allowed to perceive the audio logs or documents that Sebastian can, to help explain some of his knowledge gaps later on in the game. And because Ruvik is a dick.


	9. Simple Math

When they heard the gunshots, Joseph scrambled up a ladder to see Kidman dragging a kid as white and pale as the hooded man into the church. He also saw a maze full of haunted. From his vantage point and with the rifle he’d picked up, he helped clear a path for Sebastian and steered him in the right direction, although it turned out to be blocked off in the end. 

“I’ll look for another route,” Joseph called out, looking over the maze for an alternate path. He saw something that sparked his memory; two horse statues facing each other. They were rearing up as if getting ready to smash the sarcophagus between them. 

He met up with Sebastian at the statue. His partner stared at the sarcophagus like he was trying to read it. Joseph shook his head, “Wait, there was something about a horse statue in the house back there. Let me see what I wrote,” he thumbed through his notes. He found a sketch of the two horses, noting the small difference of the position of one of the legs with the real thing. He changed the statue to match the drawing, and the tomb slid back, revealing a short drop down. 

Sebastian raised his eyebrows at him, “I guess we go down.”

“I guess so.” They jumped at the same time. Joseph landed on his feet, and so did Sebastian, but then his partner fell back, eyes closed. Before Joseph could even squat down to check on him though, his eyes were opening again and he started to stand. “Are you all right?”

“You don’t have to worry about me,” Sebastian answered gruffly.

Joseph sighed, rubbing the back of his neck, of course he had to – his partner wouldn’t worry about himself. He decided not to share his thoughts and just fell in step with Sebastian as the man cautiously started down the stone corridor they’d found themselves at the end of. Sacks hung down from the ceiling, and Joseph scrunched up his nose at the smell of blood that was so thick he could taste it in the rawness at the back of his throat. He left his questions about Kidman and the boy for later.

They entered a small room with four alters, candlelight and Sebastian’s lantern the only available illumination. There were numbers emblazoned on the wall and an elaborate spike trap filling the tunnel out of the room. “This is getting ridiculous,” Joseph muttered under his breath. To Sebastian he said, “What do you make of this writing?”

“Doesn’t mean anything to me.” His partner shrugged, “Should it?”

“Hold on a second, I jotted something down earlier,” Joseph pulled out his notebook again and flipped through the last few pages to a poem alluding to the numbers marked on the wall, a 3,5,7 and 9. He skimmed the poem. “It seems the ‘sacrifices’ need to be lowered to the proper alters and the ‘safe way to him’ will be opened.” Alarmingly, Sebastian wordlessly started pulling the leavers until the spike trap retracted into the ceiling with a promising click, “I heard something.”

Sebastian took that as confirmation and headed down the tunnel with less caution than Joseph would have liked. He followed even though he wasn’t completely confident in his partner’s solution. What would he do if Sebastian died and left him on his own anyway? He frowned at the nihilistic thought. Come on, you’d be screwed on your own. Just look at how much you’ve been fucking up, how much trouble you’ve been causing because you’re so weak. Sebastian is the burden? Don’t be ridiculous, you are. Joseph wanted to laugh, because for once the voice buzzing in the back of his brain was right, but he held it in. “It seems that was correct,” he stated pointedly as they reached another gothic elevator seemingly designed to intimidate its occupants. Sebastian didn’t respond. They headed upwards.

They ended up in yet another tunnel hallway that emptied into a small, grimy lab with a limbless specimen in a glass case. Sebastian flipped through a couple papers on one of the desks before heading through the opposite doorway. Before he exited, Joseph took a peek at what his partner hadn’t bothered commenting on and only saw smudged lines of unreadable text.

Joseph was really starting to miss the sky as they continued on down another passageway, when they both stopped in their tracks. In a huge cage in the middle of the room was a giant mutated dog. It looked like it was a pumped up Rottweiler; head a mess of tumorous flesh, teeth, and eyes. It breathed as if it was sleeping, but some of the eyes were blinking and open. Joseph swallowed, glancing at Sebastian, who pursed his lips and then started to cautiously move forward. Joseph followed.

They inched around the sleeping mutation, and the whole time Joseph begged himself not to fuck it up, not to wake the beast by kicking an errant rock, start coughing or sneezing, or vomiting at the overwhelming stench of the thing – a mixture of sweat, musk, and rotting fruit. Surprisingly his body listened as they made it safely outside again. Joseph quickly picked a lock on a gate and they were in the sunlight. Then there was a deafening crash, a flicker of movement that Joseph was certain was the dog, and everything went dark.


	10. Rest, Detective

When he woke he was in the wire frame bed and felt like a chew toy. His head was throbbing, the skin on his right arm had been grated along the rocky ground, and he was leaking blood from what looked like teeth marks in his left shoulder. He cried out when he tried to sit up, black bursts dotting his vision.

“I must ask you to remain lying down while I treat your wounds, detective,” The nurse said in a monotone from where she was standing in the doorway of the cell, a medical kit balanced in her hands.

By now Joseph knew better than to disobey. “Thank you,” he offered in place of the useless questions.

“It’s my job to help others,” she retorted with almost well-concealed pride.

“Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be thanked for it,” he answered, then hissed as the motions talking caused irritated the puncture wounds in his shoulder.

“No more talking, detective. Stay still,” she admonished, and there was a note of affection in her voice.

Joseph stilled, not sure what else there was to say. The nurse worked in a silence only interrupted by his hisses of pain. Once she was done bandaging him she carefully sat him up and helped him put his clothing back on. Then she pushed him back down. “Rest, detective. You have some time before your absence will be noticed.” She stood from the edge of the bed and walked out before he thought up the appropriate question to ask. She didn’t shut the door.

Had she meant Sebastian, or someone else? What was this place if it meant he could be missed while he was there? Joseph asked himself an increasing stack of questions even as his eyes were slipping closed. He fell into the dreaming dark of real sleep.

When he woke, Sebastian was quickly slinging his right arm over his shoulder and hefting him into a standing position. Joseph groaned but didn’t feel as terrible as he would have guessed based on his injuries.

He still felt dazed as his partner shuffled him forward, rushing them through a hole in a large iron gate before Joseph heard the growl that had necessitated the haste. It was the giant, mutant dog. Then Joseph noticed another thing, he was doubled over, breathing harshly, but could barely see the gravel in the ground at his feet. He touched a gloved hand to his face where his glasses should be.

He walked back to the gate, squinting through it.

“What is it?” Sebastian asked, and Joseph couldn’t make out the expression on his face. 

He searched the other side of the bars, the whole time wondering if the dog could break through them. He couldn’t see anything. “I left my glasses back there,” The frames had been a gift from his grandfather. He’d never get them back now, and just as bad, without them he was next to useless. “Fuck.”

Sebastian didn’t respond. He moved around him, and then squeezed back through the gap in the bars. Joseph gapped, unable to react at first to the ludicrous actions of his partner. He glanced around him furtively, finding a couple discarded bottles. “I’ll distract him!” He picked up one of the bottles and threw it against the bars, shouting at the monster. He wasn’t sure it would work, but as Sebastian crouched, the giant dog sprinted for the gate. Joseph cringed, but the monster banged against the bars with a loud clang. It snarled at him, pacing and snapping, so Joseph continued yelling at it to keep it distracted. It was disconcerting and a little terrifying to be standing so close to something splotchy and vicious with very little in the way of defense. He kept touching his face, looking for the frames he’d had since he was a child. This hell was going to get so much worse without his glasses.

But it would be impossible without Sebastian. 

Over the back of the huge beast he could see a brown blur crouched and moving about close to where he’d been lying. The brown splotch got taller and then there was the loud bang of a shot gun blast, then the brown thing was sprinting for the bars, just as the dog charged towards where the sound had come from. Sebastian squeezed through the bars again, and Joseph let out a shaky breath.

Sebastian held out his hand and Joseph took his glasses back, dusting them off before he slipped them on, surprised they weren’t broken. “It’s not just about seeing,” he offered as an apology, taking in another shuddering breath, “It’s about feeling normal.”

Sebastian clapped him on the shoulder, “It’s all right. Let’s just find Kidman,” then he started jogging towards the steps of the church. When he was a few paces away Sebastian muttered under his breath, “Jesus Joseph, all that for a pair of glasses?” He probably hadn’t expected him to hear it.

You didn’t ask him to get the glasses, why the fuck is he bitching about it? It didn’t matter, it was true, he was just problem after problem. Who disarmed all of those trapped doors? Who had his back with a fucking axe when he has three different types of ranged weapons? Joseph shook his head, trying to dislodge the hot thoughts, like a brand to his brain. They weren’t his. They were an infection, one that he couldn’t get rid of. Just give in. It’s easier. It’s better. No regrets. He won’t even realize it until it’s too late. Take what you want. Joseph choked, stumbling. 

Sebastian glanced over his shoulder at him. “Just a little further,” he said gently. Joseph tried to shove the thoughts down, bury them. They weren’t his. He had to get rid of them.


	11. Ties

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. Sort of.

They went into the church. It was gorgeous with the dying light filtering through the large stained glass windows. It also seemed lonely and abandoned, another angel statue watching over the pulpit.

The coppery tingle tickled the back of his throat again, forcing him into a coughing fit. On the tails of it a wave of dizziness caused him to sway. He placed a hand on the back of a pew, trying to steady himself, but when that didn’t work, he inched around to sit down heavily on the hardwood bench. Muffled words underlined the humming in his brain telling him to give up. This isn’t worth it. He felt like lying down, telling Sebastian to go on without him before he turned, before he hurt his partner again. Fuck that. Fuck it all. You don’t need to lie down, he does. Shoot him in the leg, push him onto the bench and fuck him. He won’t be able to resist you.

“Hey Joseph, you still with me?” Sebastian grabbed him by the shoulders, evaporating the thoughts, and keeping him from slumping all the way onto the bench, where he knew the terrible words would be louder.

Joseph groaned, wishing Sebastian would let him go, let him fall. “Sebastian, you ever had the urge to just jump when you’re in a high place? Or the subway rolls by?” His partner didn’t respond, just kept him upright, forcing him to fight. “Imagine if you had that urge for a minute straight. Then two minutes.”

Sebastian squeezed his arms where he had a stabilizing grip on him, “You fought it off three times now Joseph. You’re learning to stop it.”

Joseph felt another simmering bubble of anger burst and he pushed his partner away from him. “You’re not listening,” he snapped in frustration, “I’m not worried about stopping it, Seb…” He felt the coppery tickle in the back of his throat and coughed. He drew in a sharp breath so that he could keep going, “I’m worried about not wanting to stop it.” Joseph took off his glasses, not wanting to see in such clear focus his partner’s confused expression. How could Sebastian not understand? Was he really that much stronger than him? “Some part of me wants to turn… I don’t know why, and I can’t reason it away… it’s deeper than that. It’s like instinct and it’s getting stronger.” 

It looked like Sebastian was about to answer, but the high-pitched static caused both of them to put a hand to their heads. Joseph cringed against the pervasive pain that lanced through his brain like it was being stirred up, listing to the side. He heard muffled words from Sebastian underneath the buzzing, but couldn’t make them out. Then his partner stabbed him with something at the base of his neck. Pain shot down his spine and he tumbled to the church floor. He fumbled at his neck but didn’t feel anything through his gloves. Everything went dark.

The stone floor was cool against his cheek, and the buzzing had subsided to background noise. Before he even knew what was happening, strong hands were lifting him up to his feet, and then pushing him back down onto the bench. Joseph looked up, adjusting his skewed glasses. Sebastian. The man didn’t say anything, just sat down heavily next to him, vibrating the pew.

“Sebastian,” Joseph asked, looking away and trying to straighten out his rumpled vest, “what did you do to me?”

“You don’t know either,” He responded thoughtfully, staring at the broken angel statue at the front of the church. 

Had it always been broken? “Wait, you don’t know what you stuck in me?” He shot back, incredulous.

“Just that it seems to help,” Sebastian said blandly.

Joseph started, “Doesn’t that seem a bit reckless, Seb?” When his partner didn’t immediately respond, Joseph shook his head, sighing, “I suppose that is like you.” Then he flushed as the things he’d been thinking rose to the surface again, this time not as a compulsion, but reminder of how poorly he was doing fighting against the monster he was becoming. The violence, and a desire he thought he’d thrown away. Sebastian was married, thinking about him fucking him on their work desk after hours wasn’t appropriate, so he’d discarded the urges because they were partners and friends, and that’s where it would and should stay. The ugly desire had temporarily resurfaced after the accident, when Sebastian’s marriage was falling apart, on nights Sebastian was particularly drunk and grabby. But after a couple of close calls he’d been so disgusted with himself he’d thrown the thoughts away again.

Thought he had. Really really thought he had. But now he was worried all he’d done was bury them deeper than he knew had been possible.

Sebastian let out a soft hum beside him, and then grabbed his tie, yanking on it so that Joseph lurched towards him and their lips met in an awkward crush. Joseph gasped, trying to pull away, but Sebastian’s grip on his tie kept him from moving far.

“Seb, what are you-” His question was cut off by another forceful kiss. Joseph forgot any other form of response was possible in his surprise, and just sat there, hands tightening together in his lap.

Sebastian pulled away from him, letting his tie go. “Isn’t this what you wanted?” He asked in a teasing tone that made Joseph’s stomach tie up. He worked his throat to try and deny it, but his partner kept talking, “You’re turning into a monster, and I’m likely going to die. Might as well, right?”

Joseph’s mouth fell open as he forgot how to breathe. His brain could barely process the sounds that had just come out of his partner’s mouth, let alone figure out a way to deal with them.

Sebastian laughed, and it was gravelly and smug. “You are quite uptight.” 

Joseph felt his face go burning red as he sputtered, scrambling for a retort that wasn’t coming. Sebastian chuckled again, then grabbed his tie, bringing their lips together again. This time he slipped his tongue into Joseph’s open mouth, exploring. Joseph conveniently forgot to pull away in indignation.

And why should he? Sebastian was the one that started this, running broad hands up his sides, sliding them across his tightening stomach, down the insides of his thighs. Joseph shivered against the mouth invading his, unintentionally letting out a soft groan. The corners of the mouth crushed against his turned upwards in a sly smile as the hand between his legs cupped him, causing his dick to twitch. “Much better,” he murmured before slowly running his hands up his stomach again and down the outsides of his thighs, fingers hooking underneath at the curve of his ass.

Sebastian tugged him closer and Joseph twisted his body to be more accommodating, left leg folded up onto the bench. A little voice in the back of his brain whispered for him to stop, that he was still somehow taking advantage of his partner, but the hands on him, the urgent tongue in his mouth silenced it. Isn’t this what you’ve been unconsciously begging for all along?

Sebastian’s mouth pulled away from his, and instead he replaced it with two grimy fingers pressing down on Joseph’s tongue. They tasted like grit and iron. The fingers pushed down, then smeared to the inside of his cheek, swirling down along his gum line, pulling them away wet, a few droplets of spit dripping down Joseph’s bottom lip. Sebastian repeated the gesture with three fingers while he panted raggedly, knowing what Sebastian wanted, and he was getting hard just thinking about it.

“Undo your pants,” Sebastian said gruffly, and Joseph did what he was told as he licked at the fingers in his mouth. Sebastian pushed Joseph onto his back with his dry hand, keeping the fingers of his right hand wet in his mouth. Sebastian tugged off Joseph’s pants, and he felt a strange thrill of embarrassment at the fact that he was still fully clothed from the waist up, spread out on a church pew. Sebastian pressed a wet finger into his entrance, working each finger inside Joseph while he squirmed, moaning underneath him. Once he was prepared, Sebastian pressed his palm against Joseph’s mouth. “Lick,” he demanded, again Joseph did what he was told.

He watched, cloudy-eyed as Sebastian pulled out his cock, slicking it up with the wet palm before hooking his hands underneath Joseph’s legs, pushing them up until he was in a position that the man could comfortably push his way inside of him. He waited for Joseph to adjust around him before starting a slow, agonizingly deliberate pace. Joseph moaned, eyes screwing shut, gloves gripping the side of the pew as he dazedly realized what he’d wanted, what he’d disgustingly dreamed of, was coming true and it felt even better than he’d wished.

Sebastian moved inside him, pace picking up until he was grunting as the pew was groaning, and Joseph was letting out small gasps. He wanted to touch himself, but he was afraid if he removed his grip on the bench he’d fall off, so he just moaned in frustrated pleasure and held on. “S-Seb-” 

His partner, towering above him, quivered, coming inside him, a hot burst that filled Joseph. Sebastian was still inside him as he shifted, warm lips against his ear, “cum for me, little Joseph.” The voice was rotten and sweet, and not Sebastian’s.


	12. Heart Condition

Joseph’s eyes flew open to find a white, scarred face close to his, a smirk turning up a corner of his thin mouth. Joseph let out a garbled scream of surprise even as he came, pleasure shooting through him as he exploded onto his vest. He reflexively arched his back, slamming his head against the pew, eyes closing for a second before they flew back open. He saw black spots in his vision, but nothing else. Sebastian, nor the white ghost, was anywhere to be seen.

Joseph panted, quickly crashing down from the high as he shot into a sitting position, sweeping his gaze through the church that was now empty. He pulled his pants on, then frantically wiped at the cum on his clothing before leaning over the edge of the pew, bile rising in his throat. He started puking. Tears welled at the violence of the action, and he felt flush like he had a fever. He wanted to scream, but he was too busy splattering what was left of his late lunch onto the stone floor.

Eventually he was only trying to spit out the taste of his own vomit and the ghost of fingers in his mouth, his stomach muscles trembling from the effort. He stood, stumbling away from the stained pew, and furtively looking around the small church again for any sign of the white hooded figure. He staggered up to the pulpit, his legs giving out once he had his back to a wall. He stared out over the church, shaking, but still didn’t see anyone. He removed his glasses to rub at his burning eyes, then quickly put them back on, searching for signs of the scarred man again. However both the man and the buzzing in his head seemed to be gone.

Joseph realized he didn’t know when the fake Sebastian had shown up, or if there had ever been a real one. His hands tightened into fists with the effort to stamp down the urge to throw up again. He rationalized it was when he blacked out briefly and Sebastian’s behavior had changed, but how could he be sure the rest of it hadn’t just been a clever act?

Joseph’s spine hurt, and he couldn’t block out the memory of warm hands on his body, in his mouth, inside him… he pressed his mouth to the back of his fist, trying to get his shuddering breathing under control. He wouldn’t cry, he begged himself, he wouldn’t give that sick fuck, that could still be watching, the extra thrill of seeing just how much he was bleeding on the inside. He commanded himself to get up over and over again, but his legs were shaking and he knew they were useless words.

Then he saw his discarded axe and rifle, and despite the weakness, scrambled to get them before going back to the spot he’d been cowering in. With trembling fingers he checked the ammunition on the rifle and decided he really needed to find a pistol. The axe, unexpectedly, was still in good condition, but he didn’t know how much longer it would last. He gripped the handle, his leather gloves making a soft creaking noise with the force of it. His heart was thumping hard still, his eyes hot. He demanded that he not cry. He needed to get up, move forward, meet up with Sebastian and Kidman and get out of this hell. He tried not to shiver at the thought of seeing Sebastian again and not knowing if he was real or not; both options made him feel nauseous, but at least one was still wrapped up in a bit of hope with the shame.

Joseph slowly climbed to his feet, using the wall for support, taking deep, measured breaths. Small steps. He would do what they intended on doing and go up into the tower to get the lay of the land. There was a plaque at the base of the steps leading up warning that there were 150 steps and that it might not be safe for people with heart conditions to climb the tower. Joseph laughed a little, wryly, and then started climbing, one shaking step at a time. By the time he reached the top his breathing was steady and he didn’t feel the need to look behind him every step. He still felt sick, but he was moving forward. Maybe.

The sun was resting on the horizon, revealing a starless black sky following behind. In the twilight Joseph finally saw the city as Sebastian had described it – broken. In the distance, as if on a pedestal, Beacon Mental Hospital stood, lighthouse light cutting through the growing darkness. Joseph squinted as the light reflected off his glasses, blinding him. When the whiteness faded away he was standing at the end of a long hallway, gurneys and wheelchairs littering it like a cartoonish version of a hospital. The only sound he could hear was his own breathing. He looked back to see a blank wall. He walked to it, running his hand along it to check and make sure that it was solid. He thought perhaps he should be more upset that he had just been teleported out of the church by some unseen force, but he was happy to be away from that mistake.

He gripped the axe, moving forward slowly, weaving around the affectations littering the hallway. Was this supposed to be the mental hospital? Joseph slowly pushed open the door at the end of the hallway. It opened up to a round room with more unintelligible medical equipment. At the center were several tubs, much like the one he’d been hooked up to, plugged into a central system. Joseph paused, then walked up to it, running his fingers on the edge of one of the tubs, and then along the wiring before unconsciously running them along the base of his own neck.

He circled the machinery and the rest of the room, looking for anything he could use, which was nothing, before taking the time to sketch the apparatus. There was no paperwork or manuals that could tell him what the thing did, but it was the second time he’d come across one, and he’d been hooked up to one, so they were clearly important to this world of tangled memories. He peeked back down the hallway he’d come through to check on the blank wall, and then headed through the door at the opposite end of the operating theater. There was a loud clang and he spun around to test the door he’d just gone through, but it wouldn’t budge. He could hear muffled voices coming from the other side, and instantly recognized one of them – Sebastian. He tugged harder on the door. It remained completely still, as if he were trying to open a wall.

He banged on it and just heard the dull thud of his fist. “Sebastian!” There was no response, his partner just kept talking with someone else as if he hadn’t heard him, and Joseph guessed he probably hadn’t. He turned around, looking to see if there was another way back into that room, but was just staring down another impossibly straight and narrow hallway leading to one set of double doors. “Shit,” he mumbled to himself, then pressed his ear to the door, trying to listen to the conversation. Suddenly the hallway lit up and he had to temporarily squeeze his eyes shut to block it out. When he opened them again, the corridor was much shorter and splattered with blood. There were the bodies of three police officers on the floor.

Joseph warily approached the bodies, waiting for them to get up and attack, but they didn’t. He grabbed the pistol one of the officers had dropped, and then checked them all for ammo, apologizing under his breath for being so disrespectful as he did so. Then he continued down the hallway, gun at the ready as he slowly pushed one of the double doors open with his left hand. He found himself in another corridor with several doors and an archway further down off to the left. He knew exactly where he was; just outside of the lobby of Beacon Mental Hospital. He cautiously followed the blood splatters towards the entrance before another slice of light cut through his vision.


	13. Alone

When his sight was no longer a blank white again he was in the foyer of a large house. It was dimly lit in blue tones, with a white marble floor and large portraits on the walls. Two staircases took graceful spirals up to a second floor, elegant in the high-ceilinged room. There were a few closed metal doors in the foyer, and one large one that was open. First he tried the door at his back that looked like it led out of the building, but it was unsurprisingly locked tight. He headed for the large metal door. Joseph cautiously walked up to it, still scanning the empty room as he did so. The door had a massive, complicated lock and pipes leading away from it. He had a feeling that if he wanted to get through this door, he better do it now, trap or not.

He took a deep breath and stepped into the hallway past the door. He looked back expectantly, but it didn’t slam shut. He continued down the impossibly long hallway, not sure what he was looking for. Would this place give him a clue as to what was going on, or was it keeping him further from the truth? The door at the end of the hallway was slightly ajar. He smelled the faint scent of rotting fruit and heard gurgled breathing and knew he would be dealing with the haunted.

He switched to the axe before easing the door open. One of the monsters was listlessly standing in a corner of the room, bafflingly enough facing the wall. Joseph crouched, creeping up to the monster and then swung the axe, severing the head with a snapping squelch. He waited, listening for any others rushing for the room, and then when he didn’t hear anything, searched the room for anything he could use. There was a pair of bookcases along one wall and a locked black door with a scrawling gold design across it. On one of the shelves was pistol ammunition.

He picked the lock on the black door, pressed his ear against it, hearing the tell-tale grumbling of haunted. He eased the door open to find that once again the haunted was just listlessly wandering the room. Joseph was able to sneak up on it, but as he severed the head, the axe handle snapped with a loud crack. Joseph ran back into the sitting room and hid under the couch before haunted rushed into the room, growling in the backs of their throats as they looked for the source of the sound. Joseph kept his breathing even and quiet, pistol clutched in his hands so that if they noticed him, he could shoot them in the head and just hoped none of them had a weapon long enough to pierce through the thick wooden couch.

What was he doing? Where was he going? He felt a swell of hopelessness, but he told himself all he really had to do was survive, keep moving forward. He had a goal; find Sebastian and Kidman. But how was the real question. He needed another high location, another vantage point, but how could he get to one when he kept getting shuffled everywhere? He needed to get back to Beacon.

An eternity later, the monsters filtered out of the room, giving up on what seemed like a rather halfhearted search to Joseph. He waited a minute longer before he slid out from under the couch and peeked out the door. The hallway was once again empty, so he headed back into the room he’d come from. There was a desk saturated in blood with surgical tools on it, some diagrams that Joseph took a moment to sketch, a mannequin, and not much else. He continued through a curtain at the end of the room, into another short hallway.

He cautiously made his way through the door at the end of the hallway and found what was clearly a lab. There was a large tub in the center of the room hooked up to machinery, and while this one was square, and mostly level, it was easy to recognize the milky, viscous liquid inside as the same stuff that was in the other tubs. This was likely the prototype. He searched the room for notes and only found a clipboard with pieces of paper with the words scribbled out, smeared, or ruined by blood, and grumbled in frustration, tossing it back down on the workbench near the apparatus. He scoured the room for anything else useable, and when he didn’t find anything, he quickly sketched the room and the machinery, and then headed for the door on the opposite side of the room.

As soon as he opened the door, he regretted it. A wave of the scent of rotting flesh hit him hard, but that wasn’t even the problem. Squeezed impossibly in the hallway was a huge monstrosity with several legs and what looked like bodies hanging off of the tangled ball of flesh the legs were attached to. Joseph raised his gun, then thought better of it and spun on his heel. The monster roared out of several mouths, a mixture of agony and rage, and then stomped the ground. It shook the floor and walls, throwing Joseph into the air. When he expected to hit the ceiling, he kept going and then hit a mattress on his back, which knocked the wind out of him.

Joseph gasped desperately for several seconds before he was drawing in air again, or even had the presence of mind to notice he was back in the place with the nurse. The door to the room was shut this time. He slid off the bed, still breathing heavily, but before he reached the door, the nurse obstructed the view of the opposite wall through the bars. “Detective.” She opened the door and stepped inside, her fingers loosely threaded together in front of her.

“Hello, nurse,” he responded a little breathlessly, pressing a hand to his chest as he tried to regulate his breathing.

She walked to the bed and sat down on the edge of it, barely perched on the mattress. He stared down at her, surprised. He wasn’t injured, and she hadn’t shown any inclination she intended on sitting and chatting with him. “Sit down, detective,” she ordered gently, patting the mattress.

Joseph’s legs folded and he sat down heavily on the bed. It squeaked underneath his weight, and he realized it had been completely silent underneath hers. “What is it?”

“Detective Oda,” she started, and Joseph thought he should be surprised she knew his name, but he wasn’t, “we are alone here.”

He opened his mouth, closed it. His brow furrowed. Of course they were, he hadn’t seen anyone else in the small reception area earlier, and he heard no one now. “What do you mean?”

“No one is watching us.” His eyes widened. No one. Did that also mean the scarred man? Was this really a safe place from him? Then his face burned. Was she implying that she knew what had happened? He turned away from her, hands tightening in his lap. “You seemed agitated, and caring for my patients is my duty.”

So she didn’t know. It was a small comfort, but his body didn’t relax in the least bit. It had still happened, he had still committed a horrible act and paid for it. Before he could stop it, tears were trickling down his cheeks. He cried, silently. The nurse placed a hand over his hands balled up in his lap, and in the same gesture was giving him a measure of privacy as she looked towards the wall and not at him. He curled in on himself, ducking his head down. Tears disappeared into small dark splotches on his black pants. His shoulders shook as he pressed his mouth into a thin line to keep the hiccuping sobs in.

He cried until his mind was blank, his nose was horribly stuffed up and running at the same time, and all he wanted to do was lie down for the rest of his life. The nurse waited through the entire process, but when he was done, she stood and walked out of the room without another word. He collected himself, taking deep, measured breaths, wiping at his face, and as disgusting as it was, running his nose along his shirt sleeve. He smoothed his hair back into some semblance of order, then stood, straightening his vest and tie and brushed the creases out of his pants. 

He walked out of his room, taking a left to reach the small reception area. The nurse was waiting patiently for him at the opposite end of the still doorless entryway, in front of the iron barred door. Beyond her the table with the revolver was gone, replaced by one of the tubs. “You… want me to get in that?” He asked in disbelief. She just opened the door, then threaded her fingers together again in her lap as she headed into the room. He followed, once again doubting he had any other choice.

“If you would?” She motioned to the tub.

He stared at it suspiciously, dipping a finger into the liquid that felt cool even through his glove. “Just… get in?” He asked helplessly. She didn’t respond, just stared at him expectantly. He sighed, gripping the edge of it. “What happened to the gun?”

Her tone was unexpectedly gentle, “You don’t need it anymore.” He blinked at her, sliding into the tub without really thinking about it. “My apologies,” she continued calmly, “this will be a little rough.” She grabbed the pronged cord that attached to the machinery and jabbed it into the base of his neck before he could respond. Everything went white and then his limbs jerked and he was tumbling out of an upended tub, just barely avoiding smashing his face into the tiled ground.


	14. Traps In The Nightmare

He lay there, gasping for breath, rolling onto his back. He was in the operating theater again, with the circle of tubs hooked up to a central machine that reached up into the ceiling. The lighting in the room was a bright, clean white, a huge difference from what most of the jumbled up place seemed to be like.

Joseph climbed to his feet, using the tub to steady himself. He wasn’t really expecting there to be, but there was no sign of Sebastian or Kidman. He checked his weapons. He had the pistol, but had somewhere along the way lost the rifle. He sighed; at least he still had all of the pistol ammo. He made another sweep of the room, looking for information. He found a bloodied document on something called the STEM system. It was several pieces of paper of messily written notes, what looked like patient numbers, and a sickening amount of repetitions of the words ‘cardiac arrest’. Not sure what else to do with them, he folded up the papers and tucked them into his notebook.

Joseph looked between the two doors leading out of the room, trying to figure out which way would be a better choice.

“What are you doing here, little Joseph?” A gruff voice said in a low rumble next to his ear. Joseph jumped, spinning around as he stumbled back several steps, and into some unexpectedly solid air. “You shouldn’t be here,” the voice whispered, breath hot against his ear. Joseph choked on a scream as he jerked forward. Something solid punched him in the back causing him to trip. He fell through the floor, spinning. His stomach lurched, he hit a ceiling, and then the ground on his hands and knees.

He grabbed his gun, scrambled to his feet, spinning in a circle as his attention flicked all around him, including the ceiling and floor of the steel-walled area. He was borderline hyperventilating as he tightened his death-grip on his gun and unable to stop himself from shaking. He bit back the urge to cry, instead focusing on taking in his surroundings and ignoring his skin crawling.

He was underneath a grated floor, the whir of fans, or something bladed, causing harsh shadows to cross over him. He was at a junction, 4 metal tunnels leading off in what he guessed were the cardinal directions. The drone of heavy machinery and the air it blew about meant he wouldn’t be able to hear or smell the haunted if they were in the corridors until he was almost upon them; but that also meant the noise from his gun wouldn’t be a huge disadvantage. With that small comfort, Joseph went to the left tunnel, determined to examine the place methodically, or hopefully get lucky and just get out of it.

The tunnel ceilings were shorter than the junction was, and he had to crouch a little to get through. He knew his partner, who was much taller and broader, would have a horrible time down there, and that left a small chuckle under his breath. It wasn’t long before he came across the first tripwire, which he easily disarmed. Now that he knew what to look for, the traps were crude, seemingly made by incredibly vicious children.

Joseph looked over his shoulder every few feet, less worried about the haunted than he was about the monster in the white hood. He would have fought waves of haunted if it meant he didn’t have to see that man again. Goosebumps rose along his arms and he fought back the urge to vomit as his stomach churned thinking about what had happened at the church.

He tried to wall it out with a myriad of questions. Why didn’t that man want him in the room with the STEM machinery, anyway? He’d been hooked up to one, and the nurse made him use one to leave the reception area, but what were they? Why were they so important? With a frustrated sigh he acknowledged he knew far too little about what was going on.

As Joseph snaked his way down the ductwork he sketched out a map in his notebook, just hoping the landscape didn’t change when he wasn’t looking. It wasn’t hard to traverse, even with the addition of the ludicrous spinning blade traps at some of the junctions. A switch there, a carefully placed bullet somewhere else, and he was emptied out into a concrete room with a set of metal doors up several steps. The doors were marked with a delicate vine pattern in a sprawl over the entire thing. The room was littered with barrels and trash, but nothing useful.

When he started heading back to the door, an inky blackness rolled out of it, forming into the scarred man. His head was ducked, eyes boring into Joseph, a scowl on his face. The rottenly sweet voice was gone, replaced by a slow-burning wrath, “Aren’t we smug. I’ll remind you that you are mine to do with as I please.” The man raised a hand and as if on strings, all the debris in the room rose with it. 

A concrete block lunged for Joseph. He managed to duck but something caught him in the back of the head, knocking him forward. A wooden dowel rammed into his leg, sweeping it out from underneath him, but before he even fell something else crashed into his back. He hit the ground and rolled. He tried to struggle to his feet and was just knocked down again by another flying piece of garbage. Pain was delivered to him from everywhere, he heard crunching and thuds and it was going too fast for him to even guess what was happening to his body. He tried to protect his head with his arms but only one of them even moved at his insistence. It felt vaguely like a giant hand grabbed him by the waist, flinging him towards a wall, and then, blessedly, everything went black.


	15. She Was There

The next thing he knew, he was lying on the mattress in the safe room. Everything hurt, a sharp agony in every breath. He took stock of his situation. His left arm was splinted, his right hand, ankle, and head were tightly bandaged, and breathing felt like he was scraping his insides. He was alone in the room, door closed, causing a panic to bubble up in him.

On cue the nurse appeared beyond the door, “Detective, rest. You need to heal.” Joseph opened his mouth to speak, and instantly regretted it because of the pain that shot through his jaw and chest; he stilled again. The woman sighed resignedly, then opened the door to the room with an audible click, stepping inside. “I locked the door so that no one would disturb you,” she answered the question he couldn’t ask. She turned around the chair at the small, dilapidated desk so that it was facing the bed, sitting down and smoothing out her skirt. She placed a hand gently on his forehead, just beneath the bandage, her skin warm and comforting. “Rest, Joseph,” she urged softly. He closed his eyes, unable to resist, and quickly sank back into the dark.

The next time he woke up the bandages on his ankle and his head were gone, but she was there. The time after that the bandage from his right hand had been removed, but she was there. The fourth time he woke up he could breathe without the sharp scraping of pain. It still ached, and he still had the splint on his left arm, but he was feeling much better. The nurse was gone and the door was closed.

Joseph slowly sat up, careful of his arm, and laboriously stood from the bed. The door was locked. For some reason, after her explanation, it was a comforting sort of boxed in. He was alone there. He went back to the bed, sank onto it, and was quickly asleep again.

When he woke up, he felt like he’d been asleep for years, his joints aching, but the splint was gone and the door to the room was ajar. He stood from the bed and headed out into the hallway. The nurse was waiting for him at the other end of the reception area, and he wondered how long she’d been standing there.

“Thank you, nurse.”

She gave him the briefest hint of a smile, “You’re welcome, detective.” Then she turned towards the barred door, pushing it open. “Now you must continue.”

“Continue?” Joseph asked, eyebrows raised, “Where am I even going?” He pointed at the tub, “Why do I have to go back out there? What is this thing even? All I’m doing is getting tossed around, so what’s the point?”

“I cannot answer those questions for you, detective,” she replied, using his title pointedly, but there was no anger in her tone, just that placid calm. “‘The point’ I cannot determine for you, you must decide that for yourself.”

“But-”

“Memory is a fickle thing, please keep that in mind,” she interrupted him cryptically.

There was a small tickle at the back of Joseph’s throat. Different from the coughing fits he hadn’t had since the church, but as if her words were a small spark. Was he forgetting something?

“I will try to,” he answered, resignedly climbing into the tub because he knew better than to try and prod her for answers she’d already refused to give him. “At the very least, can you tell me what STEM is?”

“You already know the answer.” She plugged him in and then he was rolling along the floor like he’d been thrown off a truck. A wall stopped him.


	16. Marionette

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *rolls away*

Joseph unsteadily climbed to his feet, bracing himself against the wall. He was in a wide hallway with bright florescent lighting and white painted cement walls. So normal it was creepy. He took out his gun, getting it at the ready, pointed down towards the floor and gripped in both hands. 

He shook his head. He already knew what STEM was? Then why did none of this make any sense? Was she just dodging questions, or did she genuinely think he already had the answers? And what had she meant with the memory remark? Had he forgotten something, from another case perhaps, that would explain everything? If they were truly alone in the reception area, as she had said, why couldn’t she just tell him the information? She didn’t seem like she was actively trying to keep it from him. And who was she that she would know if he knew about STEM or not? Joseph held in a frustrated grunt, hoping Sebastian and Kidman had more information. If they were still alive. No. They were alive, they had to be, and they would make it out of this nightmare together.

Joseph walked forward, cringing a little as his shoes squeaked ever so quietly on the waxed floor. He searched the hallway and the storage rooms off of the corridor without incident or any sound other than his footsteps. From the supplies it looked like he was in the back area of a mall, boxes of clothing and knickknacks tipping him off. He found the stairwell, but didn’t take it until he’d explored the entire floor, knowing he’d probably be locked out without a keycard. The stairs went up and down, but down was clearly marked as a parking garage. Maybe he could find a vehicle that would let him get around the broken city faster. He cautiously headed down.

He left the stairwell on P1 and started walking. The way out of the parking garage was blocked by a large hole that dropped down into P2. He poked his head down the hole, sweeping the area, looking for enemies. There were none, and it made his skin prickle. This world was hostile, an empty parking garage could only mean one thing – something big was on its way.

Sighing, Joseph hopped down to P2, hoping there was a stairwell back up on the other side, or at least the ramp out was still in one piece. He swept the area one more time, and didn’t see anything, so he headed back towards where the parking garage ramp would be to check its condition. He started to move faster in the absence of enemies and building tension that something… or someone would appear behind him any minute and throw concrete at him.

He stopped in front of an elevator, and that’s when the roar shook the floor. He swiveled around and saw the monstrosity that looked like a cross between a fleshy spider and a flooded graveyard, chains rattling. He frantically pushed the elevator button up, and it blessedly opened, he darted inside and mashed the lobby button. The doors closed and the elevator headed upwards. With a ridiculously mundane dinging sound the doors slid open into the flooded, ruined lobby. Joseph had seen the devastation from the church tower, but it was much more breathtaking up close.

However, he didn’t take a lot of time to examine his options, and just waded through the water to the street, getting as far away from the elevator as he could. He trained his gun on it, waiting. Nothing came up after him. He turned in a slow circle, sweeping the area. Nothing came up after him. He let out the breath he’d been holding. 

Unexpectedly the sun was shining and it was warm. Joseph walked to the edge of the cracked and broken street, looking out over the city – and once again, off in the distance, Beacon Mental Hospital stood on its pedestal of ruined earth. There was a working carousel off to his right, and although the music was slightly off and eerie he stepped onto it, hopping off on the opposite side. He continued on, gun at the ready, checking over his shoulder every few seconds to make sure he wasn’t being followed.

He disarmed traps and took down small groups of haunted in his way as he forged a path towards the hospital, trying to keep keenly aware of his surroundings in case the scarred man suddenly appeared again. He checked cars he came across, but each one was either broken or the battery had died. His legs and arms were aching from the ghost of past injuries and the constant walking with his gun at the ready, but he did his best to push the discomfort out of his body because he had no other choice, he had to keep going.

His forward progress in the open air was halted by a gaping hole in the sidewalk, so he reluctantly ducked into what appeared to be a mannequin factory. A cold, moist fog permeated the area and it took several seconds for Joseph to adjust to the dim, bluish light. The condensation was annoyingly collecting on his glasses. There were huge wire bins of mannequin parts in neat rows and he could hear the faint gurgling of haunted somewhere up ahead.

Joseph slowly crept along the rows, using the huge mannequin bins as a cover, which was why it was so surprising when something clamped down on his left wrist. He looked down to see a mannequin hand had reached out from the bin and grabbed him. Before he could reach for it, his other wrist was seized and his back slammed against the cage, wrists pinned at his sides. More arms snaked out, grabbing his thighs and spreading them with a strength he didn’t think was possible.

Another reached out between his legs, grabbing his crotch with stiff, plastic fingers, and squeezed him painfully hard. He gasped out, the sound half-muffled by another hand clamping over his mouth. He struggled, trying to thrash as quietly as possible against the wire frame, but the hand between his legs kneaded him with a mercenary precision that had him moaning against the plastic clamped over his lips. He tried desperately to be quiet as he heard growling getting closer, but it was near impossible as his erection strained against his slacks.

A haunted in a cop uniform rounded the corner. Joseph jerked hard against the hands fondling him, but they were too strong to escape. He steeled himself for being shot or chewed on, even as his hips unconsciously ground against the plastic, articulated attention he was receiving.

The cop haunted just stood there, staring. It was joined by three others and they all just observed as he came in his pants with a low grunt. He went limp against the mannequin hands and that’s when the officers moved. They grabbed his arms and legs, hoisting him up. He struggled weakly, heart hammering as they dropped him on a workbench, driving the wind out of him. He squirmed on his back as they pulled off his pants and cuffed his wrists together around a table leg.

Fingers jabbed into him unprepared, and Joseph’s back arched as he cried out. A haunted grabbed him by the hair, forcing his head back over the edge of the bench and shoved its hard length into his gaping mouth. Joseph let out a muffled scream as the cop pumped in and out of his mouth. Too soon he was invaded from the other side, the two haunted impaling him first on one cock and then the other. 

He screamed, brain going white with the pain as more haunted gathered, all wearing patrolmen uniforms, as they took turns spewing thin, watery cum into his mouth, on his face, and inside of him. One after another filled him, stretching him open and cracking his swollen lips. But underneath the pain and terror was a pleasure that was driving him crazy. Isn’t this what you fantasized about? No, he hadn’t asked to be violated like this, he didn’t want it. But he knew he’d had fantasies before in the horny privacy of his own thoughts about his coworkers pushing him down on a desk and taking him while he writhed and moaned underneath them, quickly becoming covered in their salty fluids.

Joseph screwed his eyes shut, listening to the voice that forced him to push back against the cock inside him, to suck on the dick in his mouth, running his tongue along the length and swallowing. Tense and let the pleasure rip you apart. 

He couldn’t count how many men came inside him, mind reeling with the sensations filling him. And then an amused voice cut through it all, “You’re not even pretending anymore. Little Joseph is a filthy slut.”

Joseph’s eyes flew open, a cock pulling out of his mouth with a pop, cum squirting on his burning cheeks. “S-stop,” he stammered out, muffled by his mouth being so filled. The scarred man just laughed at him, close to his face, examining him like a specimen he didn’t want to get his hands dirty with. Joseph tugged at the cuffs as the haunted between his legs finished with a barely felt spurt, dripping on the floor and splattering his already coated thighs. Joseph squirmed, turning away from the white hooded man, noticing his vest was splattered with his own cum.

“I’m just giving you what you want,” the man pointed out.

“I-I don’t,” Joseph tried helplessly, hands squeezing together.

The scarred man hummed thoughtfully, “I guess we’ll keep going until you can admit it.”

“N-No! Stop! Please,” Joseph gasped out, “I-I’ll admit it. I-I wanted… I,” Joseph choked, “But, but no more. I-I can’t-” 

The man chuckled, a deep, derisive sound, and then blew away like smoke. In his place the haunted returned, violating him with machine persistence until he blacked out.

When he woke up, he was still lying on the table, his pants on, uncuffed and shivering from cold fluids. He had been drooling cum down his cheek and his slacks were wet with the cum still leaking out of him. He curled on his side, pain shooting through him, too weak to do much else. The area was silent.

Eventually he shoved his way into a sitting position, stumbling drunkenly through the empty warehouse and out into the sunlight. He squinted in the sudden change and then puked. He stumbled, landing on his ass with a thud. He curled into a ball, gripping his pants with slick gloves. He leaned his forehead against his knees and focused on breathing. He wanted to scream. Joseph’s fingers tightened against his pants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this chapter was garbage but the last chapter was so short and The Ride is up next and I've rewritten this like 5 times. Give up.


	17. The Ride

After a few minutes of simply breathing, Joseph was surprised to find that his eyes were still dry and that there was a thick layer of rage on top of the disgust. He wouldn’t take any more of this torture. He was done. One way or another he would get out. He would make it through. He wouldn’t let the hooded man control him. He knew denial. He’d seen denial. He was sure his anger was cardboard, propped up by desperation, but a meltdown later, when he was safe, was better than one now when it could get him killed. 

He let his clothing and hair dry in the sunlight and then pushed himself to his feet, climbing up on rubbery legs and aimed for Beacon Mental Hospital.

He didn’t think it was his imagination that the haunted were getting more aggressive as he progressed, winding his way through rubble and broken streets, still checking for a working vehicle. Sharp edges of discomfort were shooting up his spine, and he couldn’t seem to unclench his aching jaw, and he’d almost shot several birds in his jitteriness, but the furious determination burned it all away. He could tell the difference between the anger that had gripped him every step of him possibly turning, and the anger that drove him now – a hope he hadn’t felt in a long time. He managed to climb to the top of an office building to get a lay of the land, and plotted out a course for the hospital before he continued on his way.

He entered a red barn, lowering his gun at the single yellow bus that was parked in it. He climbed on board to see that the keys were still in the ignition. He stared at them for several flabbergasted seconds, and then scrambled out of the vehicle to check the condition of the tires.

“Thank god you’re all right.”

Joseph spun at the sound of Sebastian’s voice, barely containing the urge to draw his gun on him. The man was striding towards him, a barely perceptible smile on his blood smeared face. Relief flooded Joseph, then uncertainty as he tried to decide if this Sebastian was the real one.

“How did you get here?” Sebastian asked, brows drawn towards each other.

Joseph decided to play along regardless of whether or not it was a fake, because he knew he would find out soon enough. “It wasn’t easy,” He admitted, pushing up glasses. He suppressed the full body shiver at the totality of that statement, and then felt the anger rising again, flushing out the fear. “At least I haven’t had any more, uh, episodes.”

Sebastian glanced away, and Joseph felt his heart sink even before the words left his partner’s throat, “I wish I could say the same.”

Joseph cringed inwardly. He wanted to give his partner a hug, tell him everything would be all right, because he understood. He waited a beat for Sebastian to elaborate, wondering if the man had turned on Kidman, or someone else Joseph hadn’t come across, but when it was clear he wouldn’t continue, Joseph broke the silence with the only thing he could think of, “Hey, I think I might have found us some transportation.” He nodded towards the bus and they both climbed on.

Sebastian looked at him skeptically, “This thing gonna run?”

Joseph smiled at him, surprised at how much better he felt with his partner alongside him, “Only one way to find out,” he teased.

He turned to head towards the wheel when Kidman rushed onto the bus, jumping into the driver’s seat before he was halfway there. “Shit!” She exclaimed, frantically turning the key, jerking the bus into life.

“What are you doing?!” Sebastian called out, rushing forward, “Answer me Kidm-” 

The bus lurched, tires squealing as it threw Joseph and Sebastian to the floor. Joseph rolled as the bus swung in a barely controlled turn. Clinging to a seat, he unsteadily pulled himself up, Sebastian doing the same. Before either of them could prompt Kidman for an answer again, a giant, serrated leg stabbed through the canopy of the bus, ripping it off.

“Oh no,” Joseph breathed at the huge, deformed spider that was anchoring the bus still. He stumbled back to put more distance between him and the oozing monstrosity and raised his gun, firing. The thing was eerily silent as it gripped the sides of the bus.

“Damned if I’m going to die here,” Sebastian muttered as he also started firing at the mutant.

They managed to knock the thing off the bus and Kidman had it lurching forward again. Joseph glanced over his shoulder at her, “Turn there!” He exclaimed, seeing a clearer path towards the hospital in that direction. The bus careened, and Joseph almost lost his footing. They drove down the road for several blocks before a tankard barred their way forward.

“I don’t know how long we’ll be safe here,” Kidman called out just before a box sailed over the edge of a broken overhang of earth to their right.

“Now what?” Sebastian griped, before they were fighting for their lives again, this time against haunted.

As the waves kept coming, Joseph shot a haunted with a stick of dynamite unwisely close to the combustible obstruction, and used it to blow clear a path “Keep us to the left up here,” he suggested, remembering the route he’d mapped out in his head. Kidman did so without question. 

The spider returned from behind as they continued on, but was so focused on trying to kill them, that it ran straight into a bridge the bus crossed under. Kidman focused on the road as both he and Sebastian watched for the thing to get back up. It didn’t.

Relaxing a little, they both flopped into seats across from each other near Kidman. “Keep right for now,” Joseph instructed, and Kidman just nodded at him, keeping her focus on steering around the debris in the road.

“I’m glad to see you’re all right,” He said to Kidman over the rush of wind.

She nodded at him, “How are you feeling? Sebastian said you weren’t… doing so well.”

Joseph rolled the answer around in his mind, trying to decide. “It’s been rough,” he said carefully, “But I’m feeling…” The hooded man flashed through his mind, the pain and pleasure he’d forced on him, and he wondered if he was the only one the man was torturing in such a fashion. He flushed.

“Where are we headed, Joseph,” Sebastian prompted, probably noticing his hesitation.

“I’ve got a theory,” Joseph responded, tearing himself away from his thoughts. “We seem to be moved around an awful lot. Almost as if by somebody’s will. So it’s nearly impossible to get any sense of the geography around here.” He took out his notebook, thumbing through it for the right sketch. “But the light, Beacon Mental Hospital. It’s always in the distance.” He held up the sketch of the tubs and the machinery he’d come across repeatedly, “This thing you found me hooked up to. I’ve seen it in more than one place.”

Sebastian leaned forward to get a better look at the drawing, “Yeah, so have I. It seems like it’s the same exact one but it’s hard to be sure.”

“The thing that I’ve noticed is that each time I run across one I seem to be closer to the lighthouse,” or maybe at it, he thought to himself. Joseph tucked his notebook back in his inside vest pocket, “It could be a coincidence, but like I said, it seems as if there is some intelligence behind it.” At this point he knew there was, but explaining how he knew was more than he was willing to do.

And neither Sebastian nor Kidman seemed surprised anyway, so he figured they understood that much from their own experiences. He wondered if they would be willing to share what they’d endured.

“So you figure we ought to cut to the chase and just head straight for the hospital,” Sebastian finished for him.

“Exactly,” Joseph confirmed.

Sebastian nodded, “Nice work detective.”

Joseph stood to hide his embarrassment at the unexpected praise from his partner, taking a few steps towards Kidman, “The right side looked like it led more directly toward the hospital.” He started to turn to ask Sebastian what he’d learned, when pain ripped through his right side, stopping up his thoughts. The force of it tossed him back onto the bench, and he clutched at the wound, trying to figure out what had happened to him.

Shot. He’d been shot. Holy hell it hurt. Things turned into a jumble after that. There was yelling, Sebastian was gripping his shoulders, screeching tires, Kidman was speaking garbled nonsense through the pulses of agony that pumped through him. He pressed his hand against the wound, blood shiny on his gloves. He felt cold and was shivering, which only made the pain worse. He could hear himself groaning underneath a symphony of near-deafening explosions and gunfire.

“Hang in there, Joseph!” Kidman shouted. He weakly lifted his head to find where her voice was coming from, but didn’t see her. “Sebastian is on his way!”

Sebastian was gone? Joseph tried to sit up, but dizziness tilted the world so that he didn’t know which way lead up. He stopped trying.

“Joseph!” Kidman barked at him, “Answer me!”

“So… bossy…” he gasped out and her laugh in response was filled with relief, so he figured he must have been articulate enough. He blinked dazedly, ready to sleep off the pain, but knowing he shouldn’t. Suddenly Sebastian was squatting in front of him, forcing him into a sitting position. Joseph leaned back against the bench, panting, struggling against the hands trying to keep him from putting pressure on the wound until he realized it was for his own good.

Sebastian yanked up the edge of his shirt, popping a button on his vest before he ripped the bag with the hemostat open with his teeth and then hastily applied it to the wound. Joseph ducked his head against the spinning in his brain, concentrating on keeping himself upright as Sebastian straightened, staring out the window, “Shit! Let’s get out of here fast.”

Joseph turned slightly, looking over his shoulder to see haunted starting to swarm the bus. It lurched to life again and sluggishly started moving forward.

“I’m going to push through!” Kidman exclaimed, and Joseph gripped tightly onto the back of his seat. Sebastian rolled to the opposite side as the bus swerved wildly around cars blocking the path.

And then it felt like he was floating, and then he was actually floating and had to tighten his grip on the back of the bus seat to keep from flying off of it. As the bus unexpectedly twirled through the air, Joseph caught a glimpse of the man in the white hood, one arm raised, smug, terrible smile turning up a corner of his crackled lips.

Then there was a crashing sound. Pain. Darkness.


	18. The Keeper Of Memories

He rolled, hit the ground, and tumbled into chair legs before he stopped moving, the taste of burning rubber in the back of his throat. He groaned, pressing his hands to his side, curling in on himself. He could see the metal frame of the bed, the grime on the concrete floor of his safe room, and he’d smeared blood on the mattress and all over the small patch of floor he’d rolled across. His cheek was burning, and the skin on his forearms was red and irritated. Reason told him to get up, seek out first aid, but any attempt at movement hurt so much it seemed better just to stay still and bleed.

The door creaked open, but he didn’t even bother to lift his head to make sure it was the nurse. She knelt on the floor, her dress remaining white even though she was kneeling in his blood, sliding the chair to the side so that she could push him on his back. She unbuttoned his vest and tugged up his shirt, applying a new bandage to the bullet wound, patiently keeping pressure on it until it stopped bleeding. He watched her work, brain too numb to formulate words.

“Let’s get you into bed,” she finally said softly, helping him into a sitting position, and then half dragged, half guided him back up onto the bed. They fell back into silence as he curled on his side again and she attended to the abrasions on his arms and face.

“What is this place,” he whispered weakly, “how do I get here?”

The nurse brushed his hair against his forehead with a clean hand, looking into his eyes. “Stay in the playground, it’s a safe place.” There was a kindness in her voice she was not trying to conceal.

“What?” He asked, but she only stood up and walked out of the room. He tried to get up to follow, but fell back down against the mattress with a gasp. He stayed curled on his side, hands pressed against the bandage over the wound.

The door shut with an audible click. “Rest, detective.”

Joseph closed his eyes, clutching his side until he slowly sank into sleep. When he woke again he was lying on the floor of a ruined room, the bus he’d been thrown from tottering on the edge of a gaping hole in the wall.

“Kidman?” Sebastian called out as he pushed himself into a sitting position. The only answer was the bus sliding off of its precarious perch, falling headfirst to the street several stories below.

Joseph struggled to his feet and rushed to the edge of the building, “Kidman!” His heart plummeted after the bus, his mouth drying out. There was no way for her to have survived that fall.

Sebastian came up next to him, peering down at the bus that was blossoming into fire. “We won’t know unless we get down there.” His partner turned away from the scene and started walking, “If you’re down there,” he continued softly, “hang on. We’re coming.”

Joseph hesitated, looking for any sign of movement below and only saw the fitful flickering of the fire. He let out a shuddering breath. What did he think he could possibly do against the hooded man when he could control gravity and take away anything he wanted to, including a person’s dignity? 

Joseph didn’t know Kidman very well, but she was good at her job, attentive, and occasionally revealed a quirky sense of humor. She was their partner and he should have been more careful. Joseph winced, pressing his hand against his side. When he finally turned away Sebastian wasn’t even in the room anymore.

Joseph quickly followed after his partner, catching up with him down a short hallway, staring out of a hole in the wall at the hospital, tauntingly close by. The city looked like it had been cut into jagged puzzle pieces that had then been violently rearranged. “Jesus… what could cause this much damage?” Joseph breathed out. Sebastian didn’t respond, just continued staring at the lighthouse beacon. On a level of destruction beneath the hospital, something was dangling between two pieces of earth like a colorful necklace. “Is that a subway sticking out of the ground?” He asked in disbelief.

“Yeah. But look how it’s positioned,” His partner pointed out, “If we get over there we might be able to use it to get across.”

Joseph couldn’t tell if Sebastian was running on hope or impatience, but the fact that he was already looking for a way to the hospital when they weren’t even sure about Kidman was grating. “Let’s concentrate on getting out of here,” he said, surprised he kept the terseness out of his voice.

Sebastian frowned at him, and then nodded, turning away to search what looked to be a dead end. However, as Sebastian usually did, he found a way, shooting the cable of an elevator so that it dropped one floor, giving them a way down. Without further preamble his partner took the service ladder down, dropping to the top of the elevator. The car lurched, jerking Joseph’s stomach with it. However, Sebastian leapt across safely, and then the elevator car plummeted to the ground floor. Joseph sighed, gauging how far he’d have to jump to get across when Sebastian put up his hand, “No, don’t risk it.”

Joseph almost huffed indignantly. Now the man was being cautious? Then Joseph internally kicked himself, of course his partner was being more cautious, just with everyone but himself. He decided not to argue. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was a little terrified to be separated from his partner again, but the ladder was the only way to get across. Sebastian was looking up at him helplessly, face smeared with dirt and flecks of dried blood and Joseph reflexively gave him a small smile before looking away. “Hold on,” he called down, eying the area around him, “I think I see another way down,” It was a lie, but he didn’t doubt that he would find one, “I’ll meet you on a lower level.” 

Sebastian’s features relaxed, and he nodded at him before continuing on, leaving Joseph to figure out a way to not be lying. The rest of the floor was cut off by rubble, so the only way down was to drop. He walked along the edge of the hole with the view of Beacon Mental Hospital until he found an overhang. He eased off the edge of the floor, lowering himself until he was within a 10 foot drop of the floor below. His side ached as he slowly lowered himself, and then jarred the wound when he hit the ground. He hissed, briefly pressing a hand against the bandage hidden underneath his clothing. He took several steadying breaths, and then kept going.

The floor he was on appeared to be more open than the decimated floor above and he found a pair of stairs leading to the floor below before rubble blocked off any additional progress. Of course it couldn’t be that easy. He traversed the floor, weaving between rooms to avoid the haunted littering the hallways, and used the ductwork to get down another floor into what looked like a small storage room for a restaurant.

He listened at the door and didn’t hear anything, so he quietly opened it, stepping out into the hallway, then froze. There was a monster squatting on the floor, silently setting up what looked like a complicated razor wire trap. That wasn’t the part that doused Joseph in ice water, it was his head. A safe. An old dial safe, pitted, rusted, and tangled with barbed wire. The Keeper. That’s what he’d called the monstrosity in his nightmares as a child. It trapped people, stealing their memories, keeping them forever and ever so that everyone else would forget them. The monster didn’t look exactly the same, this one looked like it had climbed out of his nightmares and through someone else’s to get to him, but it was The Keeper none-the-less. “Jesus,” he breathed out unintentionally. 

The safe lifted, dials pointed in his direction. Joseph pulled up short of screaming, reminding himself he had a gun, he could use it, he wasn’t a child. The Keeper rose, grabbing his terrifying hammer, and his trap bag, which scrapped horrifically as the nightmare dragged it behind him.

Joseph finally remembered to lift his gun and took a shot at the Keeper – it showed no sign that it had been damaged, so he turned and sprinted down the hallway to put more distance between them. He tried shooting again, but the monster just kept methodically marching towards him. Joseph ran. He burst through a pair of metal doors into a meat locker. He shoved down his urge to scream, pushing past slabs of meat until he saw the back wall, looking for a place to hide. The scraping rattle came up behind him, and Joseph angled for the left back corner where he’d spotted an open dumbwaiter. He dove in, closing the door just as the Keeper swung at him with a loud clang. He clasped his hands over his mouth, shaking in the dark of the slowly descending enclosed space. A litany of panic echoed through his head as he tumbled out of the dumbwaiter when the door opened, hitting the ground before scrambling to his feet and careening into a desk.

He lifted his gun at the dumbwaiter, then at the door, then backed into a corner of the room, willing his legs not to give out from beneath him. This was a nightmare, an honest-to-god nightmare that he was trapped in. He could handle it. He would handle it. If it was a nightmare it wasn’t real. Right? Joseph pushed himself away from the wall, rushing towards the door of the storage room, deciding that if he could just get outside before the Keeper made it downstairs he could make it.

He tried to be as cautious as he could but was lucky that the hallway and stairs he went down were free of haunted and traps because he wasn’t sure he would have caught them in his rush to make it outside. He threw the exit door open, breathing in the fresh air, not even minding the droplets of rain splashing onto his glasses as he let the door shut quietly behind him. His eyes landed on a small park across the street. It seemed bright and out of place in a nightmare, but clearly someone remembered it, or it wouldn’t have been there.

Joseph headed towards the left, where the bus had crashed. In the light drizzle the fire had gone out, and unexpectedly there was no one to be seen. Then he froze, recalling the nurse’s words. The playground. It was a safe place. He rushed back up the street, quickly crossing over to the small park. The sun shone brightly on it, and there were bubbles everywhere. He stopped short at the sudden change in atmosphere, then he heard a voice and ducked behind a big, blue tube slide.

“Good. Good good. When I get home they’ll be… surprised…” Joseph peeked over the slide to see the pale kid Kidman had been with at the church. He had his back to Kidman and was rocking slightly. The bubbles in the air froze in place. Kidman looked around in surprise, and Joseph was about to stand when she slowly raised her gun, aiming at the boy’s back. She took a deep breath. “It’s not your fault. I’m sorry…”

Joseph almost stood again, but he saw Sebastian cross into the park, gun raised at Kidman, “Stop!”

Kidman didn’t even turn towards him, “You don’t understand. You don’t know what he’ll become,” she said calmly.

“I do. I’ve seen it,” Sebastian responded without hesitation, and again Joseph wondered what the two of them had gone through, because clearly they had not had the same experiences he had. 

“You don’t understand what Ruvik is after,” Kidman responded.

Joseph straightened slightly, catching Sebastian’s attention. The man glanced over at him and Joseph nodded his confirmation; even if he was confused about what they were talking about, he’d worked with his partner long enough to know what he needed to do.

“So tell me. What is he after?” Sebastian asked, to keep Kidman talking, waiting for an opportunity when she was distracted.

Kidman took a deep breath, “He’s after Leslie.” Joseph figured Leslie was the near-albino kid she had her gun pointed at.

Sebastian scoffed, “What, he needs to finish his science project?”

“Don’t patronize me,” Kidman said, but there was no venom in her tone, “I have orders. I can’t let him have this boy.” As soon as Kidman started to turn her head towards Sebastian, Joseph rushed forward. “Leslie is the only one he can-”

Leslie screamed, a piercing sound that shattered windows and felt like it was driving the shards of glass into Joseph’s brain. He put a hand to his ear trying to shut it out, vaguely aware that the albino kid was now running away. A gunshot echoed over the rattling sound, and Joseph stepped forward, trying to stop Kidman from shooting at the kid again. There was another loud bang and then he was falling backwards, head slamming into the rubbery tiled ground.

His head lulled to the side and he watched Kidman’s heels click into his view. “I’m sorry, Joseph,” and then they were gone again.

Sorry for what? And then the pain hit him like a truck through his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, that’s the end of the game for Joseph, but no body means he’s not dead, right? Right. 
> 
> So I know Safeman/The Keeper is Ruvik’s monster, but the setting is supposed to be everyone’s collective consciousness, so I figured everyone had some ‘creative input’ on what the boss monsters were/looked like. Since Joseph only came across The Keeper, I figure that’s the one he would have influenced.


	19. A Long Story

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannibalized a short story I wrote earlier called ‘Playground’ for this part. I changed a lot because it was written in a different style and I didn’t have what happened in this story in my head yet, I just wanted to mention it so people wouldn’t think I was ripping off someone else’s story. Nope, just ripping off my own >_>d

Joseph pressed his right hand to the wound in his chest, unable to get his left arm to move enough to do the same. Blood leaked between his fingers and he groaned at the excruciating pain that was pumping through him. He heard Sebastian call to him, and then there was the rumble of earth crumbling and without even looking up, he knew his partner was gone. He was alone on the playground.

Joseph tried to sit up, but his body refused to move. His breath shuddered in his chest, jarring the wound. But he had to get up, he couldn’t just die there. He had to go after Kidman, or find Sebastian, he didn’t know which, but either was more than just bleeding out on the ground. 

Grunting he pushed himself into a sitting position. He was staring at a gaping, crumbling hole in a jagged crescent shape where Sebastian had been. He could see the monsters, with their bubbling skin and wicked grins, milling beyond the playground, seemingly blind to it. If they found him, they would eat him alive, but it was hard for him to move and he had little in the way of defense. 

At least he had his gun, which had fallen from his hand when he was shot. Lips crushed together in a thin, sharp line to keep himself from screaming as the muscles in his chest and side constricted and stretched around the bullet holes, he reached for the gun that had slipped out of his hand, but his glove was so slick with blood he had to teeth it off before picking up the weapon. His hands were shaking badly, so he doubted he could fire at anything effectively, but he felt somewhat better with at least that uncertain form of defense.

The sky rumbled quietly, and while light still shown on him, beyond the small park rain started to pour down in a curtain that painted everything grey and blue. Joseph laughed, and then gasped out as the pain tore at his chest and jolted down his side. 

The playground was a safe place. 

Did he trust the nurse that much? The woman that had taken care of him through everything? Tatyana Gutierrez, a missing person. A missing person in a long line of missing people. Joseph blinked several times at the sudden knowledge, the forgotten knowledge. 

Blood was still pouring between his fingers, an impossible amount, but the pain was lessening, to the point that he could think around it. In fact, it seemed like a spark, telling him to remember. His thoughts and his notebook were a jumbled mess, as the strange land they were in twisted and squirmed its way out of rational analysis, making it impossible for him to tell what the correct course of action was, but there was something on the tip of his tongue.

Sebastian had gone missing.

Then all of the monsters meandering around the edge of the park stopped, turning towards him as if they all noticed him at once. They charged. Joseph got off a couple shots before everything went black.

Black.  
Beep. Beep. Beep  
Screaming  
His screaming  
White.

Joseph surged into a sitting position, and then fell back against the bed he’d been screaming in. A bed he didn’t recognize, in a room that he didn’t recognize, with the exception of one fixture, Kidman.

He jerked again, but this time she was ready and pushed him back down into the bed. “Joseph, relax, I’m not here to hurt you.”

He blinked owlishly at her, rubbing his eyes to unsuccessfully scrub away some of his blurry vision. “Where is here?”

“Outside of STEM,” Kidman responded with a finality that was to be believed.

Joseph looked down. He was in what looked like a hospital gown. He tried a third time to sit up, this time much more slowly, and Kidman allowed it. It didn’t hurt nearly as much as he thought it should.  
Julie held out her hand, and he carefully took his glasses from her, putting them on. The foreignness and confusion came into sharper focus.

“You were never actually shot, Joseph. We were trapped in STEM, a system that links minds, with Ruben Victoriano. He was controlling everything,” Kidman explained, her expression and tone neutral. She was wearing a clean, white, button-down shirt and jeans, perched in a chair by his bed.

Joseph knew with certainty that Ruben was the man in the white hood, but still, what Julie said sounded like gibberish. So he sorted through the words, lining up everything along those two bullet holes that were no longer in his body. No, he’d left those in whatever STEM was. A shared, very bad dream. The thoughts sounded crazy, but he’d already concerned himself with crazy. “Ok,” he responded, voice slow, “then why am I here?”

She glanced away, “Because you didn’t die,” she looked back again, her expression as soft as he’d ever seen it, “because you somehow managed to hang on long enough that you only went into cardiac arrest after I pulled out of the terminal. The people I work for saved you.”

Cardiac arrest. He looked around for his vest where his notebook would be, where he’d tucked the papers he’d found with the STEM machine, then stopped, realizing those weren’t real either. 

Sebastian had been missing. “Sebastian! Where’s Sebastian?”

Kidman reached out a hand, pressing him back into a sitting position. “Joseph, he’s fine. Better than you actually-”

“Then where-”

“-but he’s not here.” Kidman sighed, leaning back in her chair and crossed her ankles.

Joseph echoed her sigh, tension he didn’t know he’d been holding easing out of his body. He knew he had important questions to ask, but his head felt fuzzy and it was hard to drag rational thought through it.

Kidman glanced towards the door, and then took the same measured breath he saw when she was about to shoot the white-haired kid in the back. Joseph tried to brace himself. “You can’t go back with him, Joseph. You can work for the people I work for, though.”

Joseph adjusted his glasses. “Or?” He prompted wryly, but there was a tremor in his bare hands, because he knew what the ‘or’ was, and he didn’t want to go back there.

“What do you remember from before we went to Beacon Mental Hospital?” Kidman asked, and Joseph could tell she was probing for something.

“Kidman, you know that. You were there. We were…” Sebastian was distracted, he was hiding something, “…we …were…” something big, something he didn’t want to tell him about, “…were…” Joseph placed the heel of his hand against his brow, pushing back against the headache that was forming there. He had promised himself he would wait – he wouldn’t push Sebastian into a confrontation. He would wait until he was ready to tell him. “I…” And then it was too late. He was gone. Memory is a fickle thing.

Joseph looked up at Kidman. “I… I don’t understand. I was looking for Sebastian; he was missing. Like Myra. How were we,” he trailed off, leaving the rest of the question to the not-actually junior detective watching him expectantly.

“That was part of STEM. It adjusted your memories so that being at Beacon Mental Hospital made sense. You were taken on your way home a few weeks ago, just like Sebastian, just like Myra,” Kidman answered, expression impassive, but her hands were clasped tightly in her lap, no longer relaxed.

Joseph scrambled to processes everything. He was up against the wall of impossible again. He pushed against it. It felt solid. It felt like a dream. He reevaluated what he remembered.

Myra had disappeared. For the first day he thought maybe she had finally had enough and had left  
Sebastian, but by the second day Joseph knew she wasn’t cold enough to run and not tell anyone, and that Sebastian’s insistence that she was missing was likely accurate. And then Sebastian had started acting strangely. There was a barely hidden, slow burning anger. Joseph had decided to wait until his partner was ready to tell him what it was about. He’d already strained their relationship enough with the IA report and didn’t want to push his luck. Not that he regretted the action, it was just that he missed the easiness they’d once had.

And then it was too late, and Sebastian was missing. After two days it was Joseph’s turn to poke and prod for a search into his disappearance, but there was strangely resistance from the Inspector to launch a missing persons investigation, even though that’s what they did. While he pushed at work, he would search on his own every night. He knew it was highly unlikely he’d learn anything that way, but he had to try. 

A week later he found Myra’s notes about the fire that took Lily from them. It wasn’t an accident, it was retaliation for her investigation into the serial murders. She had been investigating a lead that suggested a lot of the victims had ties to Beacon Mental Hospital.

He knew that’s where Sebastian would have gone. And disappeared.

But then he was driving to Beacon Mental Hospital with Sebastian, Kidman, and Connolly like nothing had happened. Connolly who had also disappeared. An impossible drive.

“Why?” Joseph gasped out the question, staring at Kidman, looking for the answers in the impassive contours of her face. “No – who?”

Kidman uncrossed her ankles, leaning forward a little. “That’s a long story.”

Joseph’s brow furrowed. “And Myra?”

Kidman’s expression softened again and she shook her head, “She didn’t survive in there.”

Joseph pressed his mouth to the back of his hand, “Oh jesus, did you tell Sebastian?”

“I haven’t had contact with him since leaving STEM, and I couldn’t tell him while we were in there, he would have given up,” Kidman stated as impassively as possible, but Joseph could tell she wasn’t completely unaffected.

“We have to-”

“Joseph, you can’t see him. We have our orders,” Kidman interrupted him firmly.

“But-” he tried again, but she cut him off.

“I didn’t want to have to say it, but clearly you don’t understand the position you’re in. You either cooperate or go back to being a test subject.”

Joseph fell silent, lips pressed in a line of frustration. Sebastian needed to know, even if it was going to be devastating, because at least then he could stop searching for her. But how was a question Joseph knew he couldn’t answer yet. “So what am I supposed to be doing?”

“Ruvik escaped from STEM. We are going to hunt him down and kill him. He’s too dangerous to let live at this point,” Kidman answered, steel in her voice.

“I like the sound of that,” Joseph responded, feeling the anger swell in him again. Before he hadn’t even thought about revenge. Julie looked a little surprised at the venom in his tone. He shook his head. “Ok, so tell me this long story.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was not expecting it to take this long to get to the end of the game. This got way more involved than I intended! It's not finished I don't think, but I'm done working on it for now and it seems like a decent stopping point. Thanks for reading!


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